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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23322568">i'll give you my love (and i hope that you've not given up)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/alekszova/pseuds/alekszova'>alekszova</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Break Up, Divorce, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts, and lose some kids, no child death., papa convin adopts some kids</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 16:07:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>29,558</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23322568</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/alekszova/pseuds/alekszova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Four different times Connor and Gavin have broken up with each other.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Connor/Gavin Reed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>95</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. the color gently fading</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Gavin never thought they would last. He never, not for one second, thought he could have more than just a few kisses, a handful of good memories, and the fleeting thoughts that he didn’t deserve this, deserve </span>
  <em>
    <span>him.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he was right.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he didn’t think it would ever really hurt this much letting him go.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>— ONE</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They first started dating in the summer after Connor showed up at the DPD, when the revolution succeeded, when android rights were established. Gavin didn’t really think anything would come of it.  They didn’t meet outside of the DPD. They didn’t talk unless it had to do with work. Gavin didn’t even bother trying to tease him. Every time their gazes caught, all he could think of was how quickly and unknowingly he had turned into his father. Ready to destroy something he didn’t understand or care to understand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ever since then, they haven’t talked.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But in the summer of 2039, things changed. It was an accident, really. How was Gavin supposed to know when Connor and Hank talked about their vacation that they’d be going to the same place? They arrived at the beach on different days, arrived at the town in different weeks, but their paths crossed endlessly. When Gavin went to the store to get a pack of cigarettes, Connor was there, browsing the small selection of sunscreen and candies. When Gavin went to the tiny video store to rent a movie at one of the only places he’s seen in ten years still keeping in business, Connor was there, leaving the shop next door with a stack of pizzas.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They didn’t talk until a day before Connor was supposed to head back to Detroit with Hank. He sat at the edge of the water on a towel, face turned up to the sky like he could actually take in the sun. Gavin doesn’t know why he sat beside him. Maybe it just felt like if he didn’t say a word this entire trip, it wouldn’t feel real. To see him like that. Little android with this small smile of happiness that was purely untouched by anyone else.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They were alone. No Hank in sight (later, Connor telling him that Hank liked to swim, but that day he had been packing, sending Connor away to have a moment of peace by himself) and a beach that was mostly left empty.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They talked for hours.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin has never talked that much, that long, that freely.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He even apologized.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Something real, quietly whispered, returned with a small smile, a small nod, a small </span>
  <em>
    <span>it’s okay. I forgive you.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They talked until the sun set, until the night came in, until it felt too cold to be sitting on a beach, despite the summer heat. They talked until the families packed up and left and the rebel teenagers came out with their bonfires and alcohol and loud shouting to be heard over music. They stayed off on their little side of the beach, letting silences pass back and forth, letting each other say whatever they needed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A coincidence that was supposed to mean nothing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Connor walked back to his little cabin up the road with him, asked him why he was here, and Gavin had no choice but to divulge the secret of his history of him and his family coming up here every year, for two weeks. It felt like a secret because other than those two weeks, his family was miserable. But the beach and the town and the endless trees and strangers was a sort of freedom they always looked forward to. His father wasn’t angry until the day they had to pack up and leave. His brother wasn’t annoying him, because he was off with summer friends he had made throughout the years. His mother wasn’t sad, because she drowned her grief in the lake at night.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Gavin—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin pretended he was someone else. Adventuring through the woods, spying on conversations, stealing bubblegum at the store, collecting rocks and shells on the shore. He pretended he was someone that was happy. That’s all he ever wanted. Was to be truly happy.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And coming here felt a lot like it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And you?” Gavin remembers asking. “Why are you here?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Felt like it would be a nice break. That’s all.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>A nice break. </span>
  </em>
  <span>A nice break from the horrible nature of their day jobs. A nice break from the city life, pressing down on them. A nice break to feel human, out by the water, with the sand between his toes and in his clothes, with the sun beating down on his skin, turning it tanned and red.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He remembers that being the first time he ever wanted to kiss Connor. Standing with him on the porch of his cabin, watching him in the moonlight, saying goodbye. His expression towards Gavin changing in the span of a five hour long talk. No longer was he uninterested, neutral, uncarring, but smiling, waving, offering politeness.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It felt like the end of a date.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Gavin wanted to kiss him more than anything. But he didn’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe if he had, things would’ve gone differently.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was the fourth of July when they met up again, outside of work. A week after their coincidental trips, when Gavin and Connor were both invited to Chris’ barbecue. Gavin was sitting on the bench, cooing over his baby, like he refused to let her go. Connor had never really seen him like that before. So happy, so uninhibited. He didn’t even know Gavin was Chris’ friend. They talked, of course, but Connor wasn’t in on the business of eavesdropping on other people’s conversations. Not when the noise of the DPD felt so loud that often he was forced to shut it out entirely.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor remembers Gavin’s smile when the baby laughed. He remembers how happy he looked, until the guests started to flood Chris’ backyard, and it wasn’t just Gavin and Chris and the baby anymore, but Gavin and his coworkers, and he reverted to how he was before, leaving the baby with her mother, disappearing to the shadows of the party by the fences, where Connor joined him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They were half hidden by a large tree, a trunk so big around there was little hope he could wrap his arms around it halfway, but it provided them the perfect shelter from the other people, asking questions about food, demanding when it would be tone in joking tones, passing stories back and forth that Connor wasn’t a participant of.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Can I tell you something that makes me sound like an awful person?” Gavin had asked.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sure.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sometimes I wish he didn’t have any other friends. Feel like I’m lost in the shuffle, you know? I know I’m not important to him. Times like this it feels too true to ignore anymore.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor held his hand. A quiet, tentative thing, waiting for Gavin to hold it back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he did as he brushed away nonexistent tears with his other hand, holding tight to Connor’s.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He knows what Gavin means.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not that he wishes Chris was alone and lonely. Not that people didn’t love him. But it can be hard, feeling like he matters. When Connor first deviated, when he moved in with Hank, when they were both piecing themselves back together again, they had each other. There was nothing other than the two of them leaning on each other. But they changed, they shifted. Hank quit the DPD, got a new job, but repaired his friendships with Fowler and Ben. They were over constantly, having poker nights and laughing. And Connor stayed quiet in his empty room, remembering the times when he felt like Hank would’ve wanted those nights with him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It feels like being replaced. It feels like being forgotten.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s not true, but knowing it’s not true doesn’t change anything.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So Connor held onto his hand as the night fell, and they only parted when Connor’s name was called. When they lit sprinklers and laughed and Connor played along, knowing that Gavin was still hiding behind the tree, refusing to come with him, because his name wasn’t called. Because Chris </span>
  <em>
    <span>did </span>
  </em>
  <span>forget him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He should’ve stayed. He should’ve stayed behind that tree with Gavin, or forced him to come along.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wonders what would’ve happened, if he had.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They didn’t kiss until the end of August. They had late night meetings in the break room when they stayed late to work, Gavin not wanting to go home to an empty apartment and Connor, well—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He does little else than work to prove himself worthy of staying.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They kissed when Gavin was getting ready to leave. He doesn’t remember what led up to it. He had gathered his things, his jacket hanging over his arm, when he had leaned up and pressed his lips against Connor’s cheek to say goodbye. It could’ve been a normal thing, if Gavin had been anyone else. But he was still Gavin, and he kissed Connor.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then he ran away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Their second kiss was an hour later, almost exactly, when Gavin had gone to open the door when there was a knock late at night. Connor had pushed inside of his apartment, holding his face, kissing him hard. He remembers Connor telling him he missed the first time. That he should’ve kissed him on the lips and not the cheek.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>An easy mistake, really. To mess it up so badly.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin remembers laughing. He remembers smiling. He remembers knowing that Connor was the first one to pull him out of this horrible trench of his that had lasted two weeks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Their first and second kiss led up to a third, a fourth, and if Connor had kept count, probably all the way up to their twentieth. It was the first time they had sex, too. That night, when it started to rain, when Connor didn’t want to leave and he didn’t know how to leave. He remembers kissing Gavin a hundred times over, holding him close, pulling his clothes off slowly, methodically, his fingers touching skin, scars, tattoos. He remembers pressing a kiss against each one. He remembers Gavin asking him, with his voice shaking, if it was his first time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And it was. But he was okay with it being Gavin. It wouldn’t entail the same things if he was human, anyway.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But it still meant something.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Gavin was still careful with him, like he might break.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You have died at least a hundred times, you know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Only twice.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But it felt like a sort of coming alive again that night, like he had died and not even known it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They kept themselves secret. They had to. They meant nothing. They would always mean nothing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t know why he did it. Waking up the next morning, clarifying with Connor that he wasn’t in love with him, that he didn’t want a romantic relationship with him. Their talks were good, the kissing was good, and the sex was good, but it didn’t mean they had to be boyfriends.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He remembers the look of hurt and confusion on Connor’s face, and he wishes he had taken it back right then.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Gavin knows exactly who he is, and he is not built to love. He has known it his entire life. He is not someone that people want around for long, and dating Connor would only confirm this. He would rather pretend they meant nothing than to allow himself to have him and lose him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t believe in that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It is better to have loved no one and be safe in the end than to be lonely and broken.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he knows that now, for certain, but then it was only a theory. So he let Connor look hurt and confused, and when Connor said that he still wanted this, the sex, with no strings attached, he agreed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Because he is Gavin Reed, and he will take what he can get.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he wonders what would’ve happened if he had admitted that morning that he was already half in love with Connor, and then in the following months, he would be desperately, hopelessly in love with him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They broke up a week before Thanksgiving. If Connor can call it a break up. He still doesn’t know how to refer to it. They had sex at least three times a week for a few months. Connor was allowed to stay the night, he was allowed to kiss Gavin, but he wasn’t allowed to tell him he loved him, he wasn’t allowed to cuddle with him on the couch or hug him or kiss him if it wasn’t preempting sex. And he certainly wasn’t allowed anything that would be deemed a date.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So he stopped going over as often to just talk. He started to lose what he actually wanted Gavin for.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Because he could’ve done without the sex and the kissing, but he never wanted to lose his friend, and he never wanted to lose the only piece of Gavin that he felt he had.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he did.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A week before Thanksgiving, when Gavin said he was going to visit his brother for the holiday, Connor made a mistake.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He asked for more.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I wish I could meet your family.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You don’t want that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No?” Connor asked quietly. “How do you know what I want?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know you, Connor, and I know you’d hate them if you met them,” he said. “It wouldn’t be worth it. Sides, they’d get the wrong idea. Think you’re my boyfriend or something.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Maybe…” he trailed off. “Maybe I want that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“To be my boyfriend?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Idiot. Stupid. Idiot.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I told you—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know what you told me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They sat in silence, staring at each other, looking at the other like they were betraying everything they had. And they were. Connor thought they were more than what they were. Gavin thought they were less.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m not going to date you,” Gavin said. “You know how fucking embarassing it would be to be the guy dating the android?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And so it was over.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Immediately.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>With those words, Connor was getting up, gathering his things. His ties that had been left around Gavin’s apartment, always forgotten when he left in the mornings or at night to get back to Hank’s. He took his spare jacket he left hanging on the hook next to Gavin’s. He left without another word, and Gavin watched as he grabbed his things.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And they were gone. They were broken. They were</span>
  <em>
    <span> nothing.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Just like Gavin wanted them to be.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He never wanted to be strangers with Connor again. That wasn’t what he wanted. But it’s what they became. Days of the two of them not looking each other’s way. Nights spent alone and crying in his apartment. Hating himself for every little thing he’s ever done. Destroying whatever good he had built up and leaving himself empty.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He cried until he couldn’t cry anymore and he drank until he couldn’t keep his eyes open and he woke up in pain, existed through the day in agony.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He had lost Connor. He was always going to have lost him, but it still hurt, like he was being torn apart.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was then that he realized, lying awake, staring at the ceiling, that he had loved Connor. That he was right when he thought </span>
  <em>
    <span>in a few more months—</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He loved Connor, and he lost him, and there was little that hurt more than that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>— TWO</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It happened on Halloween in the year of 2040. The two were paired up on a case. Connor sat beside him in the car, looking out at the road. Chilly and freezing cold outside. It seemed to get colder every year. There weren’t even any trick-or-treaters. Halloween disappeared out from the city in the last twenty years like someone was pulling it away inch by inch, like Gavin does with his cat when they’re playing, and despite the city's best efforts, they could never keep a hold of the holiday.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They were spying on sex offenders in the neighborhood. Making sure they weren’t giving out candy or answering doors when children showed up. It was boring work, but it needed to be done, and he could’ve done it by himself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Except Connor was in the car with him, watching the right side of the street, the soft sounds of an old indie song playing on the radio, nearly drowned out by the storm. Gavin spoke without meaning to. He wonders what would’ve happened if he hadn’t spoken at all.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I love you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I said I love you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Present tense. It would always be present tense for Gavin. It would be an impossible thing to stop loving someone like Connor. He isn’t perfect, but he’s kind and selfless and hardworking. He is as close to perfect as there is.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You waited a long time to tell me that,” Connor whispered.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He had.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Too long.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He knows that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He didn’t know what to do with the information. In the last year, Connor had grieved for the loss of his relationship, he had let it go, he had accepted and moved on that he would never have a shred of Gavin ever again. He was alone, and then he met a boy. A human. Thirty-three years old, with bright blue eyes and deep brown hair and a laugh that reminded him of Hank’s.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor was dating someone for the last three months. He was getting closer and closer to the verge of loving someone. But he couldn’t say the words. His boyfriend had. He had whispered them against Connor’s skin one night, and he had kept them safe inside of his chest. Knowing that he was loved by someone, knowing that he mattered.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he couldn’t say it back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then he was sitting in a car, thinking about how much he wanted to go to that apartment and curl up in that bed with his boyfriend and not think for a little while, but now all his thoughts where the same thing:</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin loved him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin </span>
  <em>
    <span>loves </span>
  </em>
  <span>him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why in the hell would you say that now?” he said, his voice quiet, every single word he said in that car was hushed like it was a secret. “Why would you tell me that when I’m happy?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s a lie.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He did know.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Because he’s Gavin Reed, and he destroys everything.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I hate you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The words sting, but they’re of little surprise. They seem to exist on the tip of every person’s tongue that has ever spoken to him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor broke up with his boyfriend two days later. A messy thing, with too much tears on both parts, with a thousand apologies coming from Connor. Never enough though. There could never be enough to cover it up.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Is there someone else?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>No.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But yes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Connor didn’t say a word, because he didn’t know how to answer. He didn’t know if he could say truthfully a confirmation or a denial, and he didn’t know if he could actually voice either of those things without harming himself in the process. So he said nothing, and he let his boyfriend—his ex, stare at him with his own understanding.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Guess that’s why you never said it back, huh?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They don’t speak, but that change is nothing really all that different from before. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He tries to forget Gavin by dating again. Five months pass by in which he dates two different girls, a male android, and sleeps with a dozen different people he meets at bars. He doesn’t know why he’s bothering. The girls can tell he doesn’t want to stay. The strangers at bars know what he is; a lonely boy wishing that he was with someone else.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But they still kiss him and they still fuck him and he is still all alone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor is waiting for him by his apartment door two days into March. They look at each other like the broken lost people they are, with Connor trying to hold himself together, with blue staining his shirt.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What happened to you?” Gavin asked, and he watched Connor flinch away from the words.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t want to talk about it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then why are you here?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor sighed, shaky and scared as he looked back to him again, “Do you still love me?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was a moment when he wanted to say no. Saying no meant maybe he could free Connor. Maybe. If lying could grant Connor the ability to move on and be happy with someone else, it would be worth it. It would be worth closing this door forever.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he couldn’t lie.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So he said,</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes. I am.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Can I stay here tonight?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you going to tell me what happened to you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>No. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Gavin knows it even before Connor shakes his head. But he let Connor in. He wiped the blood from his face, he gave him a different shirt, he held him close. They fell asleep in the bed beside each other, the first time Gavin had ever really properly held Connor, the first time Gavin had ever seen Connor upset and it wasn’t him that had caused it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Or maybe it was.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But at least at that moment he could provide a little bit of comfort.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was a quiet thing, when it crept up on them. Weeks passed by of them slowly talking again. Connor didn’t tell Gavin about what happened that night, when he went home with the android. It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last, Connor can’t ever say that it would be the last. But in the time following that night, Connor was too consumed with what had happened to remember that he loved Gavin. It was something that had almost slipped his mind. He grew so used to being around him, that it wasn’t until summer came by and Gavin asked Connor to come with him to the lake that he remembered where they began.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It rained almost the entirety of the two weeks they were there. They raced back and forth from shops, the winds tearing the umbrella from their hands on one of their trips. They hid for cover underneath the awning of a closed down holiday shop, and Gavin had been smiling and laughing, his hand on Connor’s like it belonged there, and Connor hadn’t even been aware of it until then.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He kissed Gavin without thinking, and Gavin kissed him back, and there was a smile they both shared that was something entirely different than they’d ever had.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor gave himself to Gavin in bits and pieces over the course of three months. Allowing Gavin to have things he had once had before, but now felt like they were locked away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He didn’t want to lose him again. He didn’t want his trust violated so easily again. And Gavin let him take it slow. He let him have whatever time he needed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They were happy.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>For a long time, they were happy.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They were so incredibly happy, that Gavin would wake up at night time and feel like he was breaking from it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But they were horribly unhappy, too.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor didn’t tell him what happened that night until the middle of December, when the power went out and they were huddled by each other in the dark around all the blankets in the apartment to keep warm. It was the kind of day that was filled with cuddling and warmth, with kisses pressed against cheeks and jokes tossed back and forth, but when the night fell, it was the kind of night that contained secrets they couldn’t take back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He cried while he told the story, in bits and fragments, as little as possible, whispering them against Gavin’s shoulder, never looking him in the eye. That an android did exactly what Connor had done so easily when he was a machine. Holding him down, probing into his memory. Looking through all that data. The bits and pieces of himself, poisoning him. Ripping awful things to the surface. It was the kind of story Connor didn’t know how to tell properly. It was the kind of story that Gavin didn’t know how to respond to, except by holding him close and telling him that it would be okay, that he loved him. A hundred times over, he told him he loved him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And the story was the start of the unhappiness that would soon unfurl between them. A messy blanket made of knots and ruins instead of love.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>talk </span>
  </em>
  <span>to him anymore. He used to say things, things that felt like casual comments but held the secrets of his past. The markers in his cabin that showed his height. The hiding spot where he kept spare money in his closet. The fact his brother was the one to give him the jacket he always wears. These tiny things that he said so simply, that felt like so much to Connor, were gone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He had barely started to open up to Connor when they started dating again, and each thing he told Connor felt smaller and smaller until they amounted to nothing, until they spent their nights barely speaking.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor knows it was his fault that it happened. If he had never told Gavin what happened to him, there wouldn’t be a void between them. Gavin refused to talk to him. Connor didn’t know how to force it out of him. He didn’t know how to make Gavin say things he didn’t want to. He closed off, one door at a time, until they were left in such a pitiful silence that Connor sometimes resented the end of the work day, when he would go with Gavin back to his apartment, and have to make small talk until they went to bed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Although, it turned out, that slowly wasn’t an issue anymore, either. Gavin stopped asking him to come over, and when he did, they went to sleep immediately, facing opposite directions. Broken.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Broken, all over again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor woke him up from a nightmare, that night. Holding onto his shoulders, shaking him out of his sleep, telling Gavin that he had been mumbling in his sleep. They weren’t screams, not in the real world, but they were in his dreams. But there was something more. Connor sat up on the bed, watching him, waiting.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you going to tell me what it was about?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” Gavin said. “You don’t need to know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t need to know anything about you, do I?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Nothing,” Connor whispered. “Nothing. Just go back to sleep.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He watched Connor get up, gathering the second blanket, one of the pillows. Things that Gavin had bought when Connor started staying the night, because he knows he’s a thief, and he knows Connor likes the warmth of blankets, the comfort of pillows, that Gavin always took from him in his sleep.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Where are you going?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Couch.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Because,” Connor said, annoyed. “I don’t want to argue. I just want to sleep.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why would we argue?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t… just forget it, okay? Forget I said anything.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin reached across the space, pulling the blanket from Connor’s hand, tossing it to the side, “What the fuck are you on about?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You don’t talk to me, Gavin.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“About my stupid dream—?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“About </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>he whispered, his voice coming out broken, near tears. “You don’t talk to me about </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything. </span>
  </em>
  <span>You don’t tell me how you are, you don’t respond to my questions, you just… You’re here but you’re a thousand miles away. You won’t say anything to me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Just because I don’t want to tell you about every little thought I have—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m not asking about your little thoughts, Gavin,” Connor said. “I’m asking you to just say one thing to me for once.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fine. I’m talking right now, aren’t I?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“God, you’re so… </span>
  <em>
    <span>infuriating.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What? What the fuck do you want me to say, Connor?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Just tell me what’s wrong!” he said. “Just tell me what happened in your dream, what happened three months ago, why you refuse to talk about your dad or why you push me out of the room when your brother calls. Why won’t you just be honest and tell me how you’re feeling when I ask you? Why won’t you give me two fucking seconds?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The pillow is tossed at him, hitting his side and falling to the bed while Connor steps backwards, leaning against the wall behind him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Gavin saw this little window of opportunity, like he had months and months ago, when Connor was in the hallway.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Are you still in love with me?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He could’ve lied and let Connor go then, but he was selfish and greedy, and he wanted Connor.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he saw that then, too, with Connor crying, leaning against the wall, looking up away from Gavin’s face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So he took it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Because I don’t want to tell you anything,” he said, and that part was true. He didn’t want to tell Connor anything at all. “I don’t love you enough. Not anymore.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You don’t love me?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then why can’t you just let me go instead of holding me prisoner?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Isn’t that what he’s doing? Right now, forcing Connor out? Seeing him weak and hurt and confused all over again?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You should leave.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah. I guess I should.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor was back to where he was again. Packing up a box of his things, leaving the apartment, tired and broken and beaten down. It’s the only thing he can think of himself, when he thinks of Gavin at those moments. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Broken. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Repeatedly and horribly so. Beyond recognition. Broken to the point of an extreme.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He didn’t go back for his things until the next morning, when he knew Gavin would be at work. He looked around the apartment he had spent so much time in, gathering his things, leaving a box of Gavin’s stuff that he had accumulated at Hank’s, closing the door and slipping the key underneath it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He didn’t cry that time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It wasn’t until a month later, when Connor found Gavin’s sweatshirt in the wash, knowing it was his and knowing he had to part with it, needing to get rid of it, that he cried. His tears pressed against the fabric as he held it close, holding it over his mouth like it could silence him. He cried until there was nothing left of him, and then he washed the sweatshirt, brought it in a bag to Gavin’s apartment, but stopped in his tracks in the hallway, turning around and running the other direction to the stairs, taking them two at a time, an image lingering in his head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin, leaning against his door, kissing a stranger. Standing on his tiptoes, leaning against this man like he had leaned against Connor a hundred times before. Smiling, too. Happy.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A month later, and Gavin was </span>
  <em>
    <span>happy </span>
  </em>
  <span>with someone else, and Connor was just a broken boy with a sweatshirt, wishing that his pain was something physical he could fix.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span> I told you so.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I told you, we wouldn’t last.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Didn’t I fucking tell you?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Why are you so fucking surprised?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>— THREE</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Before, when they parted ways, they kept a safe distance. No talking, no looking, nothing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But this time, things were different. There was no amicable silence. There were glares thrown his direction constantly, at every turn. Everyone in the DPD had heard about their breakup, and they didn’t need to know the details to know that it was Gavin’s fault. It was always Gavin’s fault, and he didn’t even have the ability to say that it wasn’t. He knew it was.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hearing them talking about it, seeing the looks they shot him, the way they treated him, none of it was that bad. He could handle it. He could always handle it. He has been able to handle it ever since he was little and was treated as less-than. He was always going to be less-than.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The part that hurt was that Connor was the same as them. Connor, who had always treated Gavin with kindness, looked at him every morning like he wanted to kill him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin knew he deserved it, but it didn’t make it hurt any less.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was </span>
  <em>
    <span>Connor.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You never should’ve dated him.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He knows.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Gavin’s a self-centered prick.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s not.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Everyone dates a bad guy and gets their heart broken. At least now it’s out of the way.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Is it?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s an accident when he meets up with Warner. An old friend from high school, that carried onto college, that carried onto after college, that carried onto his first and only serious boyfriend he’s ever had. It was an accident, reconnecting with him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was not an accident when Gavin kissed him, when he invited him back to his apartment, when he pushed for a relationship that he had abandoned so long ago. It wasn’t an accident at all.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was a rebuttal.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He saw how miserable Connor was in the month after their break up. He felt how miserable </span>
  <em>
    <span>he </span>
  </em>
  <span>was, too, and Warner helped. Warner was loud and obnoxious, but he always made Gavin laugh, and he always knew how to comfort him when he was upset. He was a good person. They were good together. They were very good together.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he liked to pretend that none of the bad ever existed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So when he accidentally stumbled upon Warner at a coffee shop three weeks after his break up with Connor, he thought, </span>
  <em>
    <span>what a nice distraction, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and he stole him away, pretending that ten years hadn’t passed since they last talked. Pretended that the engagement ring was never there, that they could be whatever they were before.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was a good distraction. He always has been.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor never wanted to meet him. He could’ve gone the rest of his life never meeting Gavin’s new boyfriend, and he wanted that. He wanted to die before he ever had to see someone else holding Gavin’s hand and laughing at his jokes and making Gavin laugh, too. He could’ve been happy, being bitter and angry and wishing that he was something special to Gavin, other than a stupid android that was a nice body to fuck on lonely nights.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>That’s not what it was.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not anymore.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It never had been.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin had assured him that was never the case, but he hadn’t elaborated on it, and the feeling of being this boy that was used and tossed aside crawled it’s way back up from the relationship that they had had in the last few months.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He didn’t learn Gavin’s boyfriend’s name on purpose. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Warner </span>
  </em>
  <span>was said in passing. Chris to Ben, talking over the donuts as they picked over the remnants that nobody wanted. Connor hadn’t meant to be eavesdropping. He was just passing files over Ben’s desk at the time, already residing himself to a life of isolation.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin was the happy one now, with his boyfriend that came by at lunch, that sat on his desk, that made Gavin laugh the way only Connor had made him laugh before.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was jealous and angry and upset, with every piece of himself tearing apart.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Warner.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He had never wanted to know his name, and he never wanted to be standing in the breakroom looking at Gavin’s boyfriend of three months, pretending he wasn’t once in the same position, making Gavin a cup of coffee. Too much sugar. Always too sweet. Warner chastises Gavin’s health the same way Connor had, and he went to leave before Warner had looked over, calling him further into the kitchen.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We haven’t met yet. I’m Warner.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh?” he feigned naivety. “Connor.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Connor,” he echoed. “Okay. I’m trying to memorize everyone here. It’s good to know who your boyfriend’s working with. Make sure if you need to be jealous of anyone.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you?” he asked, looking at Gavin. He had his eyes on the table, stuck on his coffee.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t think so. Gavin’s not that type of person anyway.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No. He isn’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Make sure I don’t need to be jealous of anyone.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>If only he knew.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>If Gavin had, he never would have agreed to dating Gavin in the first place. It would’ve ended with that one night of reconnection and nothing else. It never would’ve come to this. It never would’ve been a three month, four month, five month relationship where Gavin had to double-check that the name on his tongue wasn’t Connor. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He supposes that should’ve been his first hint to break up with Warner. But he didn’t. Because Warner was a distraction.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A distraction that turned into a year long relationship. A year long relationship that unfurled into late night dates and laughing and asking to move in together. Living together for a year, with this hope inside of his chest that someday he would finally wake up and not wish it was Connor laying beside him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin hates himself. He hates himself so fucking much for doing that to Warner when he never deserved it. Warner was good. He was nice and kind. He was happy. And Gavin wasn’t. He wasn’t even a sliver of the same type of happiness that he was with Connor. But he was good at pretending, and there was nostalgia in the relationship. The good ol’ days coming back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Gavin?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hm?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you want to get married?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Yes, but not to </span>
  <em>
    <span>you.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The knock came at his door at four in the morning in the middle of April, when the storm raging outside pelted his windows with such fury that the knock was almost lost against the noise. Connor had been sitting by his window, leaving it propped open, the small space illuminated by honey scented candles that he couldn’t appreciate, filtered with the smell of rain, but he was still graced with the cold wind, with the rain that hit his face and his clothes and took away a little bit of this rock sitting inside of him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When the knock came, he closed the window, blew out the candles, walked slowly to the door.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He opened it without looking.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>If he had, maybe he wouldn’t have answered it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he knows that isn’t true.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s never been able to ignore Gavin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What are you doing here?” Connor looked so surprised, looking up to the moon, to the rain, to Gavin’s car and then finally his face. “It’s early—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“My dad abused my mom when I was a kid. She left him when I was twelve. She took us with her,” Gavin said, the words coming out of him fast, lost in the rain. He was already soaked, but he wasn’t budging. “But we didn’t have money and he found us so fast and he threatened to kill her. Or kill us. So she went back to my dad. And it started all over again. And when I was seventeen, she died in a car accident. And I always thought she did it on purpose. And then it was just me. My brother was off… being fucking Elijah Kamski in some prestigious college and I was the only one left. And it wasn’t good, Connor. He hurt me so often that I stopped… caring when he tried to kill me. I just wanted him to do it. And I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d run, but you ran anyway.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why are you telling me now?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Because Warner wants me to marry him and I don’t want that. I want you. But I can’t—” he sighed, his voice shaking. “I know I can’t be with you, Connor, but do you really think I could’ve told you anything that happened to me? Do you think I ever could’ve told you one thing that would’ve made you leave me? You wanted me to talk to you about these things but if I had...”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I wouldn’t have left you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you sure?” he whispered. “Because I can’t remember a single time when we were together that I felt good enough for you. I never believed you when you told me you loved me, and I know that’s my fault, but I never felt like I was right for you. I never felt like I was going to be someone you actually wanted to be with. I wanted to break up with you almost every single fucking week so you could be happy, but I knew you wouldn’t fight for me. So I didn’t.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“When did I ever say you weren’t good enough for me, Gavin?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You didn’t have to say it, Connor. I know exactly who both of us are.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then how come you don’t realize I love you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Because, why would he?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Why would he </span>
  <em>
    <span>ever?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Nevermind,” Connor whispered. “It doesn’t matter, does it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Too late for us?” he asked.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor shakes his head, stepping out into the rain. Gavin didn’t move as he grew closer, holding onto him, tipping his chin up, leaning close as he pressed his lips against Gavin’s. He kissed him like he had been waiting an eternity rather than a couple of years. He kissed Gavin like he had a hundred times before. He kissed Gavin with the kind of love that he had been craving ever since he let Connor leave.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Marry me, Gavin.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They were together for exactly one month before it ended again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He didn’t know how it happened. They were happy one second, and the next he was the DPD, listening to Chris tell him about how Gavin had rejected Warner’s proposal for a second time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>A second time.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The argument had started slow, rising like dough over the course of an hour until they were yelling back and forth at each other. Gavin has a way when it comes to that. He makes Connor extraordinarily happy, but he pulls this anger out of him from nowhere, too.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What’s the problem, anyway? It’s not like I’m with him.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You really think that’s the point, Gavin? You </span>
  <em>
    <span>lied </span>
  </em>
  <span>to me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“About </span>
  <em>
    <span>what?”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You told me that you had never really dated anyone before me. But you were </span>
  <em>
    <span>engaged</span>
  </em>
  <span> to him.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes</span>
  <em>
    <span>, ten years</span>
  </em>
  <span> ago—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But you dated him for six years, Gavin. You were going to marry him. What changed? What happened? Is it going to happen to us?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s not going to happen to us.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How am I supposed to believe you?” he whispered. “You got back with someone you loved enough to nearly marry a month after we broke up, and it wasn’t a rebound or a fling, no matter how much you keep telling yourself that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What, you think I’m still in love with him or something?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Maybe.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Maybe. Fuck, Connor, I’ve told you—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You should’ve told me who Warner was to you. I shouldn’t have had to hear it from Chris.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If I had, would it have changed anything?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes,” Connor said, picking up his keys. “I wouldn’t have ever asked you to marry me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then maybe you should get the fuck out of my apartment before you make any other stupid fucking decisions.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t know why it matters to him so much. He’s sitting outside on the curb, palms pressed against his eyes, crying when Gavin appears beside him, taking the seat next to him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I should’ve told you,” Gavin said quietly. “You’re right.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Leave me alone.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No. It’s raining,” he said. “It’s always fucking raining, huh? But you shouldn’t be out here alone. I live in a shitty neighborhood. Somebody has to protect you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can protect myself.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah? Why do we keep doing this then? Hurting each other like this?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor pressed the tears away, let the rain wash away what it could.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I love you, Connor. More than anything in the entire fucking world. Please don’t break my heart again. I can’t handle it one more time. I want to marry you. I want to adopt kids with you and move into a big house in the suburbs with the picket fence and the backyard for our dog to run around in. I want to argue over cribs and what color to paint the kitchen.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Me too.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So don’t go. Please.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay,” he said quietly. “I’ll stay. But maybe… we shouldn’t get married. Not yet.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But eventually?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Eventually. But I think it’s too soon,” he took Gavin’s hand, holding it tight. “I’ll propose again. With a ring. Just give me time. Give us time to become something again.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’d like that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And Gavin?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I love you, too.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He counts it as a break-up, even if it only lasted ten minutes. He counts it because in those ten minutes he felt his entire being break in half all over again. He counts it because he knows if he hadn’t gone down to talk to Connor, it would’ve ended and it would’ve stayed broken forever. He counts it like he counts the first time. Even if they went back up to Gavin’s apartment, and they shed their clothes and crawled underneath the blanket together, naked and close and pressing kisses where they could, huddled together for warmth in the comfort of his room. He counts it, not because of the proposal being slipped from his hands again, but because of the way Connor clung onto him so tightly, like he was trying to make up for the fact he had run.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m so scared of loving you, Gavin.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So is he.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I love you so much and the t-thought of losing you, forever or even just for a little bit, it feels like it’s killing me,” Connor whispered. “And I didn’t run because I didn’t believe you I ran because I thought—I thought if it ever happened, I didn’t want to blame myself for staying. I know you’re scared that I won’t fight for you, but I will, but I don’t want to prove it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I wouldn’t ask you to.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Good,” Connor said quietly. “So promise me that we have a deal. I won’t break your heart and you won’t break mine.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I promise.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He shouldn’t have made the promise.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He fucking hates himself for breaking it.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. you shouldn’t have to walk alone</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>— FOUR</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In the beginning, Gavin came over to Hank’s place once a week to have dinner. The specific day always changed, but it always happened and Connor always enforced it. He cannot have two people he loves hate each other the way they did. The only stipulation to these dinners that Gavin and Hank both had was that Connor had to be present, so he sat awkwardly by the table, listening to them talk and offering as little as he can. He wasn’t meant to be the one carrying the conversation. Gavin and Hank were. But he was like a lifeguard, throwing out preservers when it was necessary, which was more often than not.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was at one of these dinners when Hank posed the question of the two of them getting married. Their brief engagement that barely meant anything at all brought up once more, belittled as a good idea that neither of them had gone through with. It wasn’t the first time Gavin left Hank’s house annoyed and angry, waiting for Connor by the car. On the drive back to his place, or out in the front lawn, the two would argue again. Connor fights for Gavin to come back, Gavin fighting to never even look at this part of the city again. Connor always won in the end, but every time they argued about it, he felt worse about the deal.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s at another one of these dinners when Gavin asked Connor to move in with him, posed like a possibility but most certainly a question he was seeking an answer to. But Connor didn’t get the chance to say anything. Hank was the one to reply, which was a very short, very petulant: </span>
  <em>
    <span>No.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then it was another night of arguing, but this time Gavin wasn’t involved. After he left, it was Connor in the kitchen, stacking plates by the sink, gritting his teeth, “You’re not my dad. You don’t get to make my decisions for me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’d be making a mistake.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then let me make it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Again? For a fucking fourth time, Connor? Do I have to remind you how destroyed you have been every single time he’s left you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I left him,” Connor said quietly, but Hank wasn’t listening to him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He kept talking, going on and on for another ten minutes that he spent detailing what a piece of shit Gavin was, how much Connor had cried, how he couldn’t sleep until his battery was so low he’d fall over in the middle of a work day. It wasn’t healthy, what they did to each other. But Connor knew it wasn’t like that anymore. When they argued, it was solely about Hank and the dinners, which was the exact reason Connor kept having them. But other than that, they were happy. Connor had never seen Gavin smile so much. He had never known how gentle Gavin could be with him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You should just end it now. Before you get hurt again.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I love him, Hank, and you’re not going to change that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fine. Move in with him. Marry him. You can always come back here when he inevitably fucks you up again. But don’t get mad if I tell you what an idiot you were for not listening to me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The night was over quickly, heavy with anger and resentment. And Connor never even got to tell Hank that even if he ended it tonight, it would’ve still hurt. He would hurt no matter what. The damage of loving Gavin was done long before they got back together that time. All Hank’s yelling did was push Connor away, leaving for Gavin’s place when he had planned on staying home. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They were happy.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It feels stupid to remind himself of this, but they were so incredibly happy, sometimes, it’s sickening. It’s like they needed the horrible moments to balance it all out properly. If they were just happy, they would’ve been wrong in some way. They wouldn’t have known what to do. The kind of happiness they had was so intoxicatingly sweet that it made him forget all the bad parts.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They woke up early just to make proper breakfasts together. Connor packed Gavin’s lunch for him, Gavin told him his dream while the coffee machine brewed in the background. When lunch came around, they always did their best to spend it together, even if it meant hunching over a shared desk and working in quiet. At night time, they talked. Little things about their day, their lives. Gavin told his entire story of growing up in the kind of home he was forced to live in. He told Connor about the things his father did to him late at night. He told him about how much he hated himself for not fighting back, even though he knew the next morning it would be Eli crying quietly on the way to school instead if he didn’t allow it to happen.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He told Connor everything he could.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He found all the messy dark secrets in his life he didn’t want to admit and he places them between the pair thinking it would push Connor away when all he does is come a little closer, press a kiss against his forehead, whisper reassurances that it was never his fault.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>You were a kid. He shouldn’t have done that. And if you can’t accept that, at least be proud of the fact you protected your brother.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But did he?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not really. Not enough.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He could’ve done better. He could’ve killed their father and protected all of them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He even said that out loud, because he had to. Because he knows what it will take to keep them together. Forcing them to talk about the things they don’t want to. If he wants to hide something from Connor, he knows that means he has to tell him. So he did. Even if it meant uncomfortable silences as Connor trief to figure out a way to comfort him and failed. Even if it meant feeling the degradation of being pitied by someone he loves. He has to. He has to feel that to feel Connor’s love properly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>If he never told Connor the things about himself—ranging from his favorite things to the horrible truth of how much he hates his body, how he’s carved marks into his thighs and his stomach as though it would give him a new one—he would never know if Connor really, truly loved him. And it used to feel safe like that. Safe in the background of not knowing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But it felt better, then, knowing that when Connor smiled at him in the morning and kissed his cheek and told Gavin he loved him, it was real. There was no possibility that Connor would someday realize how broken Gavin is and leave him. He knew already. He still knows.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He knows everything.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He knows all of the things that Gavin wishes didn’t exist.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It is a horrifying concept, having someone in the world so separate from him knowing these things. This disjointed nature of their relationship now versus the quiet comfort then. It makes Gavin want to take it all back. It makes him wish Connor didn’t exist at all. That they never talked to each other, never loved each other, because then he wouldn’t be feeling this way. His heart might be a little lighter instead of this heavy thing drowning him in the sea of loneliness.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It took a long time to get there. Months of the two of them trying to force out words that they were supposed to say. Tiptoeing around the questions they didn’t really want to ask. Connor didn’t know how to. He didn’t know how to ask what Gavin’s and Warner’s relationship was like. He didn’t want to hear about how the two of them were happy together, even if Gavin tries to tell him that it wasn’t the same kind of happiness he has with Connor. But he asked anyway. He asked everything he could think of. Starting off small. Because knowing the extent of Gavin’s relationship before might help quell the fears he used to have that they would prove to be just as breakable as Gavin and Warner were.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>How did you meet?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>— High school. We had the same homeroom in Freshman year. And then when we were Sophomores we shared a Chemistry class. He lived close to my house, so I’d walk to his place when it got really bad, after Eli left. I didn’t feel safe. When Eli was around it… it was better.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Did you date in high school?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>— No. Just friends. We went to the same college. Drunken night, he kissed me. Told me he liked me.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Did you like him?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>— I don’t know. He was my best friend. He was my only friend. I was afraid of losing him, I think, so I didn’t really notice how I felt about him until he kissed me. It was this terrifying thing, you know? Kissing someone that’s your friend? Loving someone that’s your friend. It was the same with you. I finally had someone and the thought of admitting feelings and losing them entirely… it hurt worse than never having them the way I wanted. And when he kissed me I freaked. And then…</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>And then?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>— And then I realized I wanted to be with him forever. Except I didn’t. I—I’m sorry. I don’t know if that was the right thing to say, now that I’m with you.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It’s okay, Gavin. Just tell me the truth. You wanted to marry him?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>— Yeah.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>And you were engaged?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>— Yeah.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Who proposed?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>— He did.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>What happened?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>— Cold feet.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Gavin. Come on. Tell me.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>— That’s all it was. I got scared and I ran.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>At the altar?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>— No. A few months before. We had barely planned anything. But in the middle of the night I woke up panicked that… I don’t know. That he was going to be my husband. And I never thought I would have a husband. He was the first person I dated.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Was he the first person you slept with?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>— Yeah. He was my first everything.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>And you ran.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>— I ran. To Eli’s place. I stayed there for a week dodging Warner’s calls. And then I decided to go work at the DPD.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Why?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>— My dad worked there. I don’t know. It felt like I was supposed to. I hated him. My dad. But… I don’t know.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Gav?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>— I’m serious, Connor, I don’t know. I’ve never wanted anything really. I never had dreams of the future. I thought I was going to die when I was fifteen. I spent every year trying to figure out how to do it. I just got lost. I have a bullshit degree. I’m working a job I hate. I don’t know why I did anything. I just can’t imagine a reason why I’d bother changing. I don’t love anything enough to quit.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>…</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>— Except you.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Me?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>— Yeah. I love you enough to quit.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I’m not going to ask you to quit, Gavin.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(He should’ve.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then and there—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He should’ve.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They went on dates all the time. Forcing them out into the real world when they could. They skip bars, but they often ate out at diners and cafes that serve Thirium laced foods that Connor could consume as slowly as possible to savor the feeling of eating something. There was something strangely satisfying in the process of consuming a meal, Connor had realized.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And they laughed. They talked, too, sometimes serious conversations when the diner was dead in the middle of the night, but they mostly laughed. Gavin joked about the stupidest things Connor can imagine, but it never mattered, because he always laughed and he would always laugh no mater what stupid thing Gavin said.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They worked too many hours to have much free time besides those dates, but when they did, they watched snippets of movies. Thirty minutes every day, spending the time after coming up with ideas of where the story would go. It’s mostly Gavin. His imagination is worlds better than Connor’s. Dreaming up impossible scenarios, never anything that he thinks would actually happen. A character in a romcom revealed to be an alien from the next galaxy over. The lead of an action film being the villain the whole time. It didn’t matter. It always made Connor laugh.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was happy with him. Deliriously so.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He just wished Hank could see that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What happened?” he asked one night, watching Gavin as he undressed from work clothes to his pajamas. “Between you and Hank? Why do you hate each other so much?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I was an asshole. He was a jerk.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That all?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah. We just don’t get along.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It has to be more than that, Gavin,” Connor replied. “It wouldn’t be just that if he’s telling me to break up with you every time I see him.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He says that?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah. Snide remarks. Cruel comments.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Like what?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Gavin,” he said quietly. “Come on. Just tell me what happened between you two.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s a lot.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How much?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Too much.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He supposes the night was always going to come, but he had tried his hardest to put it off. He never wanted Connor to know how horrible he used to be. Gavin was horrible when Connor showed up—it’s hard to admit he was </span>
  <em>
    <span>worse </span>
  </em>
  <span>beforehand. Arriving at the DPD like he owned the place. Getting in because of his father’s legacy and destroying it in a moment.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was a series of terrible events.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When he first showed up, everyone asked him questions about his father. What he was like now that he was retired. And Gavin didn’t hold back on the fact that his father was in a nursing home, barely alive. He didn’t even bother to hide how relieved he was that his father could die at any moment. He barely concealed the fact that he hoped that any moment was in the next day or two.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Hank--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hank used to be his dad’s friend.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not his best friend, but Gavin knows they talked. He knows Hank came by the house on rare occasions, when he was young and just barely part of the force. Gavin remembers that. He remembers hating him the moment he stepped foot in the house and was called </span>
  <em>
    <span>son </span>
  </em>
  <span>by his father. It made him sick to his stomach, thinking that Hank could forgive his father for what he’d done.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he didn’t know.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nobody knew.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nobody was supposed to know except Elijah and Connor. He prefered to keep it that way.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He made Connor promise to keep it that way. It’s the most shameful and horrible thing that’s happened to him, and he’d rather have Hank hate him for treating his father’s death like a celebration than Hank knowing why he had. It was better. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But it wasn’t why Hank hated him—not entirely.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When there was foul play suspected in his father’s death, Gavin was the one implicated in evidence going missing or tampered with. There was nothing more than a few rumors that suggested it (despite its truth) and he was never punished for it, but Hank knows it was him. Just a hunch that happened to be correct. Gavin just didn’t want anyone to go to jail for killing his father, if it really was a murder. There was never a proper investigation into it once the evidence disappeared.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hank thinks of him like a dirty cop. A dirty cop that used to get in trouble almost every week for starting fights in bars. A dirty cop that hid evidence, that was instantly happier once news of his father’s death circulated the precinct. A dirty cop that spent his free time in clubs ignoring all the crimes going on right beside him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He didn’t care.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Who the fuck would care?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’d step up when it was necessary, but he didn’t fucking care if someone wanted to do coke in the bathroom or a twenty year old had a fake ID. It didn’t fucking matter.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Hank hated him for it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Still does, probably.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Is that everything?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No. I—After… Cole died…” he trailed off. “I made some… comments. Not directly to him, but he heard.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What did you say, Gavin?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That the kid was lucky he died rather than having to live with Hank as his dad.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor went silent beside him. Shocked. Disappointed. It’s enough for Connor to dump him, Gavin thought. Surely that was the end. Surely that would be the final straw. Surely that was all that had to be said to reassure Connor that Hank was right about him all along.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He was friends with my dad. I thought they were the same. For a long time I thought…” he sighed. “I know he’s not. I know they’re different. I know Hank isn’t like that. But at the time, I was terrified of him. I hated him. If I could take it back, I would. But I can’t. I can’t apologize. For any of it. He wouldn’t accept an apology without an explanation, you know?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And you can’t tell him what happened.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No. And please don’t ask me to, Connor. I know he’s important to you, but I just can’t tell him what happened to me. I don’t want you to choose between us, but you don’t have to lose him just because you have me. I’m not going to ask you to do that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And if he does? If he asks me to leave you if I want him in my life?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His throat was raw and angry, a cry crawling its way upwards, digging claws into his insides. He could barely breathe. His entire body ached with the pain of everything he’s ever felt, “Then leave me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m not going to do that, Gavin.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You should.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Shut up,” he whispered, pressing a kiss against his lips softly. “Just shut up.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor hates himself for a thousand reasons. A thousand and one. A million and two. He could come up with something new at any given point in the day. But this was different. He knew what a bad idea it was when he showed up to Hank’s house two weeks after he took the last box of his belongings from Cole’s old bedroom to Gavin’s cramped apartment.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor still visited Hank after. One day for just the two of them. They promised to spend it together to force them not to forget about the other. Connor has to wonder if someone needs to be reminded of someone they care about, if they really cared about them at all.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He supposes that’s wrong. Insensitive to the people with busy lives. But he can’t help but think of it for a moment. Cruelly and angrily, at the thought of not mattering to Hank anymore that he just disappears from Hank’s thoughts entirely. Because of Gavin? Because he has friends that are his age, that like the things that he likes, and all Connor is is an android that was his partner, briefly, that almost got him killed, repeatedly?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He knew what he was going to do even before he arrived here. He spent the car ride going over and over the repercussions and the exact words he’d say. And when Connor gets to Hank’s place and he sits on the couch beside him, watching him shuffle cards over and over again in preparation for one of the few games that Hank has decided even Connor’s ability to unknowingly cheat can’t interfere with, he started to speak with slow, careful words.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I need you to forgive Gavin.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I need you to let your fight with him go, Hank,” he said quietly. “I love him. I can’t be torn apart like this. I can’t watch you and him hate each other. I can’t choose between you two. I need you to let it go.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Did he tell you what happened?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And you want me to forgive him when he hasn’t ever even attempted to apologize?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes,” he whispered. “Please.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He’s a horrible person, Connor.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He’s not. Horrible things have just happened to him.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Like his dad dying? The fucker threw a party after. He was one of the most decorated officers at our precinct, did he tell you that?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And after Cole died…” Hank shook his head. It’s one of the few times he’s managed to bring up Cole on his own, though he crops up more often in their conversations since he’s started attending therapy. “Why is it so hard for you to just stop loving him, huh?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hank said it like a joke, a bad attempt to cut the tension between them, but it doesn’t help, because Connor can’t joke back when it comes to a question like that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wishes he could. He wishes sometimes that he could stop loving Gavin. Not now, but before. Before they got back together again. All those years of suffering, of thinking he was okay, only for the pain to be brought back again. It was always fresh, there was never closure. He was never going to be okay.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He can’t apologize to you because he doesn’t want to tell you why he is the way he is,” Connor said. “And if I tell you, you have to promise not to tell him about it. You can’t let him know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fine.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Fine.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So Connor told him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He told him everything.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Breaking his promise to Gavin so quickly, watching Hank’s face fall. Watching him as he soaked in the details, as he shook his head, as he refused and rejected what Connor told him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He was my friend.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But that doesn’t mean anything at all, does it?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>People are good at hiding things.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Just like Connor is good at hiding how horrible he was betraying Gavin like that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Things change, one by one. Gavin still attended dinner once a week with Hank, whenever he and Connor are both available. Hank started to laugh at things Gavin said. Jokes that he mostly targeted towards Connor, usually earning nothing more than an annoyed laugh from Hank, but the laughter was increasingly becoming sincere. Gavin started to leave the house feeling a little lighter than he had when he stepped in. Each week chipped away at the anxiety, the refusal to go, slowly turning into wanting to be there.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin even starts to go when Connor isn’t there, too. After dinner, they took Sumo on walks together, talked about the things they both like. The same kind of music and movies. The same kind of books. They passed recommendations back and forth for television shows and restaurants in town.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s a time when Hank handed him a book, prefaced that it contained a character struggling with the sexual abuse she faced from her stepfather, when it all clicks in his head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor told him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin has to wonder how quickly Connor told him. Was it a few weeks after? The next day? When exactly did everything go from Connor being a trustworthy source for the grotesque things of his life to being a person that would spill it when poked?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s a slice of betrayal through him. A sting so deep that he couldn’t say anything, even when he saw Connor that night. Gavin automatically opened his arms for him, pulled him close in the bed, wrapped the blankets around the two of them. He didn’t say anything because he didn’t know what to say. He was trying not to be angry. He was </span>
  <em>
    <span>terrified </span>
  </em>
  <span>of being angry with Connor. So he sugar-coated everything he felt with the word </span>
  <em>
    <span>upset.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was </span>
  <em>
    <span>upset </span>
  </em>
  <span>with Connor. Not angry.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And since he was upset and not angry, he could pretend it didn’t exist at all. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Because if he </span>
  <em>
    <span>did </span>
  </em>
  <span>say anything—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It would’ve ruined that so much quicker. It would’ve ruined the relationship he had been repairing with Hank. It would’ve ruined the good times he had with Connor. It would’ve destroyed everything.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So he pretended he was upset instead of angry and he pretended he wasn’t upset at all and he folded those feelings over and over again until they became nothing, until he could press it somewhere behind his heart where the edges cut into his organs and he still ignored the pain as it sliced into him at every reminder that the only thing he wanted to be kept secret above all else was told to someone without his consent.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They spent Halloween morning teasing each other about their costumes. Connor was a ghost, Gavin a vampire. A vampire with little marks on his neck that Connor had left there the night before. Their costumes were just regular clothes, only Gavin’s having an addition of fake teeth kept in his pocket, so they could leave the DPD as early as possible to head to Tina’s.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They spent Halloween evening at her place, kissing in the shadows where the fog machine and the low lights hid them, with everyone else’s attention on the horror movie playing and the candy bowl being passed around, riffled through for the ones people like best.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They spent Halloween night hidden under the blanket together, with Connor promising to protect Gavin from the things he keeps imagining in the shadows. Remnants of a movie haunting him even though he’s an adult, even though he doesn’t actually believe there is an eight legged human wanting to rip his spine from his body in the hallway outside the bedroom door.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>On Thanksgiving, Gavin took Connor to Elijah’s, where he met him properly and stopped calling him </span>
  <em>
    <span>Mr. Kamski </span>
  </em>
  <span>by the end of the night. They spent the entire day in that mansion, all crowded in the kitchen making various dishes. Gavin and Elijah’s arguments were either playful and filtered through laughter and old jokes or yelling at each other, snide remarks that get forgotten ten minutes later.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They didn’t watch sports, but they did watch reruns of Thanksgiving themed episodes of Elijah’s and Gavin’s favorite shows when they were kids. Connor didn’t pay much attention to the television. He watched Gavin the most. Watched him smile along to it, listened to the stories they told, voices overlapped the plot of the show. Elijah left once to get photo albums, and Connor kissed Gavin like it was the first time he kissed him, hoping that all of the love and the content nature of the evening got across in such a small action. He whispered </span>
  <em>
    <span>I love you </span>
  </em>
  <span>like he had never said it before, and Gavin smiled and curled against his body like he wanted to hide there.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elijah and Connor sifted through the photo album two hours after dinner, when Gavin had fallen asleep on the couch, and the two talked in hushed whispers to keep from waking him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“There were a few good memories,” Elijah said quietly. “Back then. There weren’t many but… I’m glad we have some.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We can make more.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Elijah agreed. “Yeah. I’m glad it’s you. I’m glad you make him this happy, Connor.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I’m trying, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he thought. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m trying my hardest to make him happy.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Christmas is spent at Hank’s, and Connor becomes very aware of how he was rationing out his holidays with his friends like a custody agreement. They watched animated Christmas movies and opened presents and kissed under the mistletoe. Hank and Gavin had a contest of who could get through a plate of cookies and a glass of milk the fastest. Gavin ends up throwing up in the hallway, unable to make it to the bathroom, and Connor only laughed an hour later when he’s sure Gavin was okay, but Hank laughed immediately, taking his position as the champion for the first (and only) eating contest on Christmas evening.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And like on Thanksgiving, Gavin fell asleep fast after dinner. Connor carries him to the bed in Cole’s room. The empty nature of the space was strange when it was once his. Gavin woke when Connor set him down and pulled the blanket around his body. He pretended he hadn’t. His eyes flickered open and closed again, going very still, with his breath shallow and restrained. He didn’t want to be woken again. He told Connor the next morning that he hates those drives across the city back to his place when he’s perfectly fine sleeping on a couch.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s fine. It was always fine. And Hank’s second bedroom wasn’t unfamiliar to the two of them. So Connor climbs into the bed beside him, whispered that he loved Gavin like he was keeping it a secret he could only tell when Gavin was asleep, and he saw that little curve of a smile appear on Gavin’s lips, because even then, he was unable to stop himself from doing it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor quit the DPD a few days after Valentine’s Day. He’d been talking about it for a while. He took up a job as an accountant after. Low paying and boring but Connor tells Gavin the numbers help him focus. There are things that belong and things easily identifiable as wrong. He likes it better than his work he did at the DPD, and he seemed happier, too, which is all that really mattered to Gavin in the end.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The problem, though, was that it became harder to spend time together. Connor has specific hours at his office, and he always comes home on time, even if it means spreading out extra work on the dining room table and working late into the evening. But Gavin is random. Coming home for an hour or two just to leave again. Opening the apartment door at four in the morning when he’d have to creep towards the bedroom in an effort not to wake Connor at all. But he always did, and he always got this look that told him that Connor isn’t happy seeing Gavin so little.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But what was he supposed to do?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Quit his job and become an accountant?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He didn’t want that. He wants Connor, but he doesn’t want </span>
  <em>
    <span>this.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(But he should’ve.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He should’ve quit and he should’ve suffered through a job he hated.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe he wouldn’t have lost Connor then.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wouldn’t have lost everything.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you ever going to propose to me again?” Gavin asked as they left the fourth of July party. The smell of barbecue and fireworks in the air as Chris and his friends still laugh, putting their things away, becoming something separate from the two of them now that they’ve retreated to their car to return home.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Or, Connor to home and Gavin to work again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Eventually.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Eventually?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You could propose to me, you know,” Connor said. “That’s a possibility.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You want me to propose to you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’d like that, yes.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fine. Okay,” Gavin said. “Will you marry me, Connor?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor shook his head, laughed in disbelief, “Yes. I suppose I will.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The ring is in the glovebox.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How romantic of you. Most people put it in champagne or cakes.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You don’t eat. And it’s a choking hazard anyway.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor opened the glovebox, retrieved the ring, slid the thing onto his finger simply. It isn’t like the engagement ring his mother wore, with the fancy diamonds and silver band. It’s a deep gunmetal black with sapphires so dark they barely look blue unless the sun hits them around the band. Gavin spent three months putting together a design he thought would suit Connor, and he worried then that it was too dark, too heavy on his hand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I love it,” Connor whispered.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“More than me?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor looked at him with that look that resembled pity so much, it felt like a rock in Gavin’s stomach. The look of Connor trying to convey that he doesn’t want to joke that Gavin means little to him, that he loves Gavin, that he doesn’t think he’s stupid or useless. It’s the look of an android taking something he said too seriously.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And maybe that’s part of why Gavin loves him. Even when he’s joking about being worthless, Connor is always there to reassure him he isn’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Second place,” he said finally. “You’re easily first.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They are both extremely simple people, in nearly every version of the word that exists, but in the primary meaning of that they didn’t want a fancy wedding. They don’t need much more than tuxes, a guest list, and someone to marry them. They planned the wedding quickly. Details kept minimalistic, the guest list small. They get married in the beginning of October, three days after Gavin’s birthday, which was the last day they spent together before Gavin insisted on being apart until they were married.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>We can’t have children born out of wedlock.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor woke that morning at Hank’s place with a giddiness in his chest. He listened to Hank jokingly tell him again and again that he still had the chance to run away if he wanted to.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Car is all gassed up. We could run away, you know.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I don’t want to run away.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t want to run anywhere but toward a future with Gavin. And it felt like crashing into him in the end, standing on the altar opposite of each other, listening to Gavin recite his vows. Carefully constructed. The only thing that was given the attention to detail it likely deserved. Both of them had written and rewritten theirs so many times, that not a single word from Connor’s original one remains.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Thank you, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Gavin said, </span>
  <em>
    <span>for loving me. For being patient with me. For giving me a chance. For letting me be me. You shouldn’t have had to live with so much of my bullshit for me to be a better person. But I’m glad you forced me to be this way, even if I hate you a little bit for making me cry like a little bitch in front of fucking Hank Anderson. I will do everything in my power to return those favors and that kindness, and I know even if I was the perfect husband for the rest of our lives together, it wouldn’t even scratch the surface of what you’ve done for me.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was an utter shock three hours later for Connor to be on the dance floor with him, pressing a soft kiss against Gavin’s forehead, unwilling to let him go, unwilling to do anything but stand so close to his husband. It was impossible to want anything other than that moment then. It felt like perfection. It felt like the kind of perfect day he never thought could really exist.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elijah’s wedding gift was a house.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Except, not entirely.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He promised to pay for it, but he let Connor and Gavin pick it out themselves. They spent two months searching for a home in the Detroit area. Not too far from Hank, not too far from either of their jobs, but big enough to build the family they both talk about late at night. The future that’s incredibly far away that they want so much closer.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They settled on a house three blocks away from Hank’s, snatching up the place quickly solely based on the distance to his house. Connor already planned on showing up at Hank’s doorstep with fresh baked goods on his days off and to steal Sumo for walks on the nights he needed the solitude.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The house is two stories, four bedrooms upstairs, a living room with a fireplace, a dining room with big bay windows spilling in so much light Connor fell in love with it immediately. The kitchen is small, the basement unfinished, the attic dusty and spider infested. Renovations needed to make the place into something perfect, but they accept it regardless. Gavin promised he could fix it up, and Connor knew that despite the difficult nature of the job, they could get it done.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It took two years before they could move into the home. Saving up money to fix problem after problem when new issues arose. Nights spent bickering over the tile for the upstairs bathroom and whether or not they replace the faded floral wallpaper in the office. A year spent still living in their apartment together, trying to make the place ready as quickly as they can, but they only have them and a few friends that offer to pitch in to cut down on labor costs. Another year spent back and forth from Hank’s place to their house before something makes it impossible to stay again. There’s always a problem and the solution is always slow to get to.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But there are nights when they are laying in bed together and Connor is flipping through the options of wallpaper or paint samples, and the two of them are laughing again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>They look like the exact same color, Connor.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>This one has a blue hue in it, Gavin. It makes it look cleaner. Do you see?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It’s white, Connor. It’s just fucking white.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It’s not white! It’s eggshell.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Ill show you a fucking eggshell.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I don’t even know what that means. I don’t think I want to know what that means.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then it’s Connor, laying flat against the bed, feeling Gavin’s hands on his sides, sending a fit of laughter through him as he tried to squirm away. Too sensitive to Gavin’s touch for an android, but never bothering to figure out a solution, because he liked it when Gavin made him laugh and when he tortured him like that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t care about anything that happens in that stupid house anymore,” Gavin said, pressing a kiss against his throat. “Just give me a bathtub big enough for the both of us. And a dishwasher. And a front loading washing machine, because I can’t reach down into the other ones.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Shorty.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s all you got to say, huh? That’s all you’ve got to fucking say?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No. Sorry. I’ll get you your washing machine. And your dishwasher. And our bathtub.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thank you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Their house was not perfect. They were not perfect. But somehow, it </span>
  <em>
    <span>was </span>
  </em>
  <span>perfect. In the way that two of them were perfect. When they finally finish the last piece of renovation, when they move the last box of their things from Hank’s place, they look at each other like they’ve finally made it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They hadn’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin knew that. He knew they’d never really make it. Something always told him that he would never make it. He would never die happy. He would never be content with his life in its entirety. But that night he was happy, and he couldn’t suffocate that happiness.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They took a bath together, scrubbing the last remnants of their life away. Dust and paint and dirt from the last few things they finished up that day. Connor in his lap, kissing him gently, telling him without words that they’ve come so far.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Once upon a time, Gavin used Connor in the worst way possible. An outlet for his anger and then a way to steal sex from someone he loved without ever admitting that fact. Hurting him again and again because he was a horrible person. But then they felt like their bad days were something they could get through. There wasn’t a string of them, weeks and weeks long, but random days, random arguments, things that they could solve.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Connor wasn’t just a coworker anymore. Not an android that got assigned to his precinct and fucked over his life. He’s his husband. They own a house together. It wasn’t the first night they spend in the house together, and it isn’t the first time they have sex in the bedroom that was finished and unfinished five times in the last five months, but it felt like the beginning of something good.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And it ended all too quickly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s a back and forth for what feels like a hundred times, but in reality only exists on three separate occasions.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They both want kids. Gavin joked about having a hundred kids, but when he was serious, he talked about four or five running around their house up and down the stairs. He talked about building them each their own crib, he listened to Connor when he mentioned knitting everything he can possibly imagine. Blankets, shoes, clothes, anything and everything that can be born from his own two hands. They talked about it constantly, and Connor decided five kids wouldn’t be so bad. He would have as many as Gavin wanted.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They adopted a dog first, just before they moved in. A little puppy named Marshmallow that wreaked havoc on their house, but became Sumo’s and Connor’s best friend by the end of the month. Gavin accumulates stray cats in the backyard, feeding them and letting them wander the house before they inevitably disappear outside again. But it doesn’t fill the gap they want.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The first time they tried to adopt, they’re rejected. Because Connor is an android. Because Gavin is a detective working long, stressful hours. Because of any reason could think of somehow found a way to stick to them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The second time they tried, they met with the company. They got approved. They met a pregnant woman that already had three kids, and couldn't handle a fourth. She doesn’t have the money or the time to raise a fourth child. They help pay for everything they can. Doctor’s appointments and medicine and maternity clothes. She gave birth five months later right on her due date. The baby is passed to them. They named him Hank. They brought him home. They put him in his little crib that Gavin spent two months hammering together in his free time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And two weeks later, the mother was on their doorstep, asking for her baby back. And they gave him away. Losing the son they had for such a short amount of time. Connor caught Gavin crying in the bathroom and he sat beside him on the tile, holding onto him close.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They lost their first kid before he could really be theirs. They can’t be angry with her, Connor thinks. She has every right to change her mind for the first thirty days. But he can’t cope with the decision that’s been made, either.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It takes another year before they try to adopt again. Their lost son’s birthday comes and goes and they pretended they didn’t think of him. They didn’t talk about it. They couldn’t. Still can’t, really. They folded it away until they both breached the topic, because even if they don’t have their baby anymore, they still want one.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The girl was six years old. Gavin found her wandering the streets with bruises on her arms and a bleeding cut on her right arm. He took her to the hospital and waited while they ran her information through the system to track her back to her parents. When they found them, they’re two people that haven’t left a casino in days. All of their winnings funnel right back into it. Sleeping at a motel down the street, feeding coins into machines. There’s evidence of her abuse written on the walls of the room. Shattered glass still lingering at the edges, scattered and broken toys shoved underneath the beds. Kids drawings thrown haphazardly into the trash. She hadn’t been to school a day in her life. She was scrawny and thin and unwanted and unloved.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Gavin knows he wanted her. The subject is brought up when she needs a place to stay while CPS tries to find a long lost relative. So she comes to their house, sleeps on the guest room bed. Connor buys her toys and clothes. It became a waiting game. Months slipped by where she became a part of their family so seamlessly neither of them could imagine a time when she wasn’t in their house.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her name is June. She hides her face when she laughs and smiles, too shy to show emotion, but she held onto Connor’s hand tight when they walked down the street. She played with Marshmallow in the backyard, fed the stays when Gavin wasn’t home. Hank adored her, spoiled her rotten. Chris’s daughter became fast friends with her and they attended the same school together, in the same grade, having sleepovers whenever they could.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor forgot for a moment that she wasn’t theirs. Not really.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her aunt on her mother’s side was out of the country for two months on business trips. Flying around from one place to the next. But she promised to settle down and make a home in California for the two of them. And she does. She took June away two days later. She promised Connor and Gavin that they can keep in touch, but she didn’t leave a number and she doesn’t call the one that Gavin passed along to her. June disappears out the door with the pink bear that Gavin won at a carnival, the baseball that Hank gave her, the scrunchies that tied her hair up into pigtails from Chris’s daughter. She takes the bracelet that she made with Connor, weaving the threads together. Bright blues and greens that matched the walls of her room that they painted together a week after she came to stay with them. But she leaves so much behind.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She left one purple sock with pandas printed across it. She left drawings and toys. She forgot the package of chalk that she used to make murals on the cement pathway in the front yard. She forgot the little bird houses they painted together and the pots they made from clay. Little things that Connor can’t bring himself to pack away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He cried for three weeks straight after she left, but he didn’t cry around Gavin. He couldn’t. He had to pretend that he was okay so they would be okay. He cried a little less until a year passed by, then two.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He packed up her room on Christmas Eve when Gavin was at work and called to tell Connor not to wait up. He packed it up in the quiet, thinking about how he never got to give June everything he wanted to give her. He put the boxes in the attic, hiding them away behind the decorations for Halloween.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he doesn’t break down until he found her hospital band from the day Gavin found her tucked inside the drawer of her dresser. </span>
  <em>
    <span>JANE DOE </span>
  </em>
  <span>printed across it because they didn’t know her name, because she refused to say it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He didn’t wait up for Gavin that night, not really. But he was still awake when Gavin came home at five in the morning. Connor was found, curled up at the base of her bed, pressing the band against his chest as though it would bring her back. Gavin sat with him, holding his hand tightly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>We can try again, you know.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I can’t. I can’t go through this again.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He is so tired of hurting and he is so tired of losing the people he loves.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They do try, though.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five months later when they’re putting up a pool in Chris’s backyard for his daughter’s party in a week, Gavin asks him quietly, with his voice coated in fear.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’d like to have kids, still. I know it’s… horrible, what’s happened to us, but I want to try again. Please, Connor. I want my kids to have dumb pool parties with their friends. I want to spend too much money on tiki torches and plastic toys. I want to hear their friends laughing at three in the morning when they’re supposed to be asleep.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And intimidating their significant others? Disciplining them when they sneak out at night?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah. Seeing them walk down in their prom dress or helping pick out the stupid ties for their tux.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Me too.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So we can try again?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah. We can try again.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They counted the days. They didn’t try to hide their mutual fear. When they adopted the little girl, they both made it clear how terrified they were that someone was going to show up on the doorstep and take her away. They didn't name her until the day passed when her mother couldn’t take her back. Gavin named her Elijah. He posed it as a joke, but Connor clung to it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I like it. We can call her Ellie.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We can’t tell my brother that I care enough about him to name my kid after him, you know that, right?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We can pretend her name is Eliot.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay. Good. I like that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And so they named her Elijah, thirty-three days after she was adopted.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But for a long time when Gavin was home and heard a knock at the door when he wasn’t expecting company, he was seized with a fear that she was going to disappear by the time he answered the door. Whoever was on the other side must be trying to take her away from them. It was the only reasonable response.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But it was just a delivery from FedEx or a Girl Scout looking for people to buy cookies, or Hank dropping by when Gavin’s forgotten he’s planned on coming over. It wasn’t until Ellie turned three that things started to change. That she felt like she wasn’t going to run away or be kidnapped. She was always theirs, but now she’s theirs without the terror of a stranger deciding she wasn’t anymore.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s late again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ever since they adopted Ellie, Gavin has made an effort to be at home during eight to nine. He tucks Ellie into bed. He reads her a story, sometimes he sings her a lullaby. But he’s there when she goes to sleep, and he tries to be there when she wakes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Except during the last year and a half. He hasn’t made it home more and more often. He leaves earlier in the morning. He’s gone for longer periods. He doesn’t pick up the phone when Connor calls him. They’ve been together for eight years and Gavin is drifting away again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It makes it hard to remember the good times when he’s home alone. On his days off, when he’s watching over Ellie, he tries to think about the times him and Gavin were happy. They seem so distant and foggy that it’s hard to remember quite right. He remembers laughing with Gavin when Ellie took her first steps. He remembers late nights with the baby monitor clutched in his hand, listening to Gavin sing her a song as she fell asleep for the night again. He remembers Marshmallow and Sumo bolting into the house after running around in the backyard after it rained, splattering mud everywhere. He remembers the two of them scrubbing it off the floors and laughing about it. But he can’t remember much else.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Of course it’s there, in the back of his head. Connor has a perfect memory. But he doesn’t want to sift through his files to find the memories. He just wants them at his fingertips. He doesn’t want to remember the last few nights when Gavin came home so late that Connor only woke by the movement of the bed, when Gavin turned in for the night, when they laid facing opposite directions. No arm draped over his stomach anymore, no face pressed against his neck, no waking him up just to tell him he loves him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s hard to recall the moments of even seeing Gavin at all in the last few months.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Ellie was asking for you tonight,” Connor says, standing in the kitchen, folding the clothes carefully. Piles spread out on the table. Gavin’s is the smallest. Too many nights spent at the precinct, sleeping in and wearing the same clothes two or three days in a row.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He didn’t come home last night. He only left a message on Connor’s phone to tell him that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sorry. I was busy.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Too busy to see your daughter?” Connor asks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah. Look, if I had time—” Gavin stops himself, shaking his head. “The fuck does it matter? I would’ve been here if I could’ve. You know that, don’t you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No. I just know I had to tell Ellie you still love her even though you haven’t been home for a week.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ve been home.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“For two seconds when she’s asleep and can’t tell?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What do you want from me, Connor? I have a job. I can’t pick and choose the hours people commit crimes during. You want me to quit? It’s the only thing that’s going to solve this.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then solve it,” Connor replies, taking the empty basket. “You can’t do this to her. You can’t just disappear from her life.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can’t quit.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why not?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Because—” he said. “Because I don’t want to.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Her life is passing you by, Gavin. If you keep this up, you’re just going to be an absent dad that was never there for her. She deserves better than that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Now I’m a fucking absent dad?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes,” Connor said, moving to the laundry room, slamming the door behind him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Yes, you are.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He didn’t mean to disappear.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin is usually one to plan when he vanishes from people’s lives, but he didn’t mean to disappear from hers, or Connor’s. He wouldn’t do that to her on purpose. But maybe that makes it worse—that he didn’t even really do anything to stop it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He didn’t have to spend so much time at work, either. He knows that. He doesn’t know why he did. It just felt like where he should go. Back to what his life was like before. Sometimes the precinct is empty and because Connor isn’t there anymore, and when he closes his eyes and falls asleep at his desk, it feels like before Connor ever existed at all. It feels like he is who he was twenty years ago.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s terrifying, really, to think of himself like that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then he opens his eyes and sees the wedding photo and Elijah’s baby picture framed on his desk next to a mug Juno made, and it feels like he wishes he could take it all away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s old now. Connor is never aging. He’s still the same person he’s been when Gavin met him. And Gavin is still the same, too, he thinks. Deep down, he is still angry and broken and he has barely tried to fix himself. Some days he just feels too broken to be who he is supposed to be, and he just wants to be angry and broken and alone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t feel like he deserves the life he got. And he doesn’t. He never did.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When he wakes up the next morning, he makes his decision. Connor is downstairs, making breakfast, and Gavin packs a bag with everything he needs for a few nights away. Clothes and toiletries. A phone charger and headphones. All tucked away and pressed underneath the bed. He’ll get it when he comes home tonight, when he won’t come back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He isn’t going to be an absent father, but he can’t do this to Connor anymore. When he’s this unhappy, all he can manage is to make sure his daughter is supported and okay. But he can’t keep ruining Connor’s life like this. He can’t drag him down. Connor should move on. He should marry someone that will make him as happy as they were, once upon a time.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. this love is slowly dying</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>He’s sitting on the porch when Connor gets home from work. A first in a long time, and Connor knows even before looking that Ellie isn’t home. She’s probably down the street at Hank’s place still. Gavin didn’t pick her up. He isn’t here for that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What are you doing here?” Connor asks, clutching his keys tightly in his hand as he exits the car. His bag feels heavy on his shoulder, drawing him back into the safety of the vehicle.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I needed to talk to you. About last night.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Listen, Gavin—” he sighs, stepping forward. “I was rude. I shouldn’t—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t take it back,” Gavin replies, cutting him off. “Just because it was rude doesn’t mean it’s not true. I haven’t been home. I haven’t been around. You were right. I’m an absent father. There’s no point in pretending I’m not. It’s not going to do anyone any favors.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you going to quit then?” Connor asks. “Because I’m sure we could make it work—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” he stands up. “I’m not going to quit.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then what is there to talk about?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Connor,” he says his name so carefully, like Connor might break just from his words.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then he realizes what he’s going to say.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he wants to run forward and stop him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Don’t do this.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think it’s best if we go our separate ways before this gets any worse for Ellie.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What the hell does that mean?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I want a divorce, Connor.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>cruel.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s fucking callous and wrong.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Everything disappears from around him. He feels his body go still, he feels the ground vanish from underneath his feet. He feels his insides crashing together and he wonders if he’s destroying himself in this moment, if he’s really this close to falling apart.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>No.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Connor?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Connor, please—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s moving fast, rushing past Gavin into the house. The door opens, slams closed before Gavin can follow him inside. The locks on the other side click into place before his hand can turn them. He leans against it, knowing Connor is just on the other side. He can see him through the window, leaned back against it, refusing to look at Gavin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s his right, really.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin didn’t expect anything else.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was this tiny part of him that </span>
  <em>
    <span>hoped </span>
  </em>
  <span>that maybe he would tell Gavin no, that he would ask him to stay. He knew it wouldn’t happen, but this—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This is what he thought would happen. Connor would shut him out. He’d agree to it. They’d go their separate ways, only ever speaking when they passed custody of Ellie back and forth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wonders briefly if that’ll even happen. Maybe Connor will get full custody. Maybe he’ll refuse to let Gavin see her. </span>
  <em>
    <span>He should.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His hand shakes as he brings it up to knock on the door, “Connor, can you please let me in?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” Connor replies, his voice shaking. “Go away, Gavin.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“My keys are inside. I left them on the table.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Call a cab.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t have my phone or my wallet.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then walk to Hank’s and ask to borrow some money. I’m not opening the door.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Connor, please—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You don’t get anything, Gavin. You don’t get anything else. You can’t have it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can’t go to Hank’s, Connor. You know that. He’ll ask and you know who’s side he’s going to take. Please just let me have my things. I’ll go. I won’t come back. I promise.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I won’t come back. I promise.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Isn’t that the problem?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor falls to the floor, hugging his knees close to his chest, trying to stop himself from crying, but he can’t. They fall out in choked gasps like there isn’t enough oxygen to properly formulate them. But he doesn’t even need oxygen. He’s an android, sitting on a floor, trying it’s hardest to breathe when it never needed to.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>A divorce. </span>
  </em>
  <span>A </span>
  <b>divorce.</b>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He stands up slowly, his hands and legs shaking. His legs can’t support him. Nothing is keeping him up. He has to lean against a wall as he makes his way into the living room. The wallet and the phone resting on the table beside an empty glass that once probably housed whiskey. He grabs them slowly, half wanting to break the phone in half and the other wanting to throw it through the window.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He spots the bag on the floor beside the sofa and he picks it up with a trembling hand as he stuffs the phone and wallet into the first pocket his hand touches. Walking past the toys Ellie left on the floor back to the door again, he opens it slowly, staring back at Gavin on the other side, who looks half-surprised to see him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You can’t abandon Ellie, Gavin.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“She’s your daughter.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why are you doing this?” Connor whispers. “Why are you doing this again?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Why are you proving Hank right that we can’t last?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I just can’t do this.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You don’t love me?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin looks away from his face to his hand. Not his hand. The bag.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Love isn’t going to fix everything, Connor.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I never said it would.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We aren’t happy, Connor. We haven’t been happy in a while. You thought getting a baby was going to fix everything and it’s not.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I didn’t want Ellie to </span>
  <em>
    <span>fix—” </span>
  </em>
  <span>he stops himself. “You were the one that asked to have a kid, Gavin.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I wanted to make you happy.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor shakes his head. Gavin isn’t making any sense. He isn’t saying anything that makes any sense, “You never wanted her?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Liar,” he whispers. He pushes the bag against Gavin’s chest, and he stumbles back a few inches away from the door. “You’re such a fucking liar. You haven’t changed one bit, have you? You’re still…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Still what? The piece of shit detective that hurt you eight years ago?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The piece of shit detective that hurt him a hundred times over.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes,” Connor whispers. “Get out.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So he does.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He leaves Connor’s place, driving further and further away from the city. He leaves a message on Fowler’s machine that he isn’t going to be to work for a while, and he drives until the city buildings disappear, until the roads become emptier and emptier.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin drives with his hands tight around the steering wheel, with his jaw clenched, with his entire body so tightly wound and tense he doesn’t realize how much he needed the relief of stretching out until he parks in front of the house. Nothing really hits him until he’s getting the bag out of the backseat, pushing the car seat aside, knocking down a toy to the floor, as he moves towards the house.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he doesn’t know what to do with it. He doesn’t know what to do with this feeling that is pulling him down and making him knock far louder and angrier than he means to.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Gavin?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hi, Eli.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He sits on Hank’s couch, watching Ellie color a picture in her book in messy scrawls. Purple for the sky, blue for the cat, and green splotches filling in the empty gaps. Hank hasn’t asked him </span>
  <em>
    <span>why </span>
  </em>
  <span>yet, and Connor is grateful for that. He never really got a </span>
  <em>
    <span>why </span>
  </em>
  <span>from Gavin, except that they weren’t happy. And they weren’t. But—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But is that really reason enough?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe it is.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He knows they haven’t had moments like they used to in some time. Since their son was taken away, it’s been a disaster. They’ve both been lost. They don’t laugh like they used to. Connor keeps digging for the last time they were happy, and he can’t find it. It’s like the memories are being overwritten every time he tries to find it. They just date further and further back. The past tainted by his new present. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Were they ever actually happy? </span>
  </em>
  <span>Or did he just trick himself into believing it?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>No.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They were happy. They must’ve been. Connor wouldn’t have stayed if he wasn’t happy. He wouldn’t have married Gavin, he wouldn’t have agreed to the house renovations and the kids if he was unhappy. He’s heard Gavin’s stories about being raised in a horrible home. He never would’ve allowed something like that to happen with his own children. And Gavin was there for him. On the nights that the dreams of another android’s hands pulling forth his history, Gavin was there to help soothe him. On the days that they were looking at paint swatches and picking out floorboards, Gavin was the one that made him laugh when the stress of money and time kept building up higher and higher.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They were happy.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then they weren’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin was lying about one thing that Connor knows for certain: Ellie.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He never would’ve given Connor a baby to make him happy. He never could look at their daughter and say she was unwanted. Not after everything.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you staying the night, Connor?” Hank asks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” he says. “We should go home.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You sure?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sure.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s used to an empty bed and an empty house anyway. Gavin not being home tonight is the same story that it’s been for the past six months. Nothing has really changed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What happened?” Elijah asks, setting a cup of coffee down in front of him. “You and him fight?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Not really. I mean, yeah, but… that wasn’t why. It was a long time coming.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Really? You seemed so happy. I’ve never seen you smile so much before. It freaked me out,” he replies. “I thought maybe the real you was dead and Connor replaced you with a robot.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s… a scary thought,” Gavin sighs, leaning back against the couch. “It wasn’t working. That’s all. I was never home. He wanted me to quit my job.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why didn’t you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t fucking know,” he whispers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Gavin,” Eli sighs, moving to sit closer to him. “Who asked for the divorce?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I did.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Because Connor deserves better. Because Connor deserves someone that would be good to him. That would actually quit their work without being asked when he wasn’t home to tuck his daughter in and be with his husband. He should be with someone who doesn’t have to be reminded to say that he loves them. He should be with someone </span>
  <em>
    <span>good.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And that’s what it really boils down to—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor was right. Gavin isn’t a good person. He hasn’t been a good person. Not just now, but ever. In his entire life, he has been a horrible person. To love, to be around, anything. He’s selfish and greedy and cruel. He takes what he can and he leaves the person behind rotten and broken. He infects them with his past and he sucks them dry of all their humor and love.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor needs someone good, and that was never going to be Gavin. But they entertained the idea, and they entertained the idea for far too long.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He should be happy,” Gavin whispers. “I can’t make him happy. I can’t even… I can’t even be a good dad. And I knew that. I knew I’d be a shitty husband and a shitty dad and I let it happen anyway. Do you see what I’ve done, Eli? I’ve fucked over two people’s lives completely because I thought I could be someone I’m not. And I’m never going to fucking change. I’m stuck like this. I’m so fucking angry and hateful all the time and I don’t know how to stop myself.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s not true, Gavin. I’ve seen you with him. I was there when Ellie was born. You weren’t angry or hateful then, you were… full of love.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Shut up,” Gavin whispers. “Fuck off, Eli.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You came to me for help.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I didn’t come to you for relationship help. I just needed a place to stay.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fine,” Eli stands up. “Stay. Sleep on the couch, drink all the booze, cry your eyes out. Do whatever the fuck you want, Gav. But you love them and you're sabotaging everything because you can’t stand to let yourself be happy.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s so stupid. Elijah is so fucking stupid.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>If Gavin thought he had the opportunity to be happy, he’d take it in a heartbeat.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ellie keeps asking where he is. Connor hasn’t been able to find an answer for her. He keeps lying. He keeps telling her papa is at work or out shopping or sometimes, if he’s not feeling too horrible, he creates an elaborate lie that papa is a spy out on a mission, protecting the world from aliens that want to harm them. And her eyes will get big and her smile giddy. Most times, though, Connor just tells her to go back to whatever she was doing. He hands her a toy or asks her if she wants ice cream and he’ll sit in the quiet trying to keep himself from screaming.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He even forgets that it’s Ellie’s birthday, until she reminds him, asking if her papa will be there.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Of course, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he tells her. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Of course he would.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he doesn’t even know if that’s the truth, either.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s been three weeks. Gavin left Elijah’s place five times and came back again because he doesn’t know where else to go. He doesn’t have the money for a motel room. He spent his last twenty at the liquor shop in town. But it’s still surprising to see Connor’s name pop up on his phone and he sits up slowly, pressing it to his ear.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hello?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Ellie’s birthday is next weekend,” Connor says. “She wants you to be here.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh. So soon?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor is quiet for a moment before he sighs, “Are you going to be there? Or did I just lie to her and say you would be?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ll be there, Connor.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay. Good. I already got the present for her. You don’t have to worry about picking one up. I’ll put your name on it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What is it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“A cowboy outfit for her doll.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Nice,” Gavin says quietly. “What’d you get her?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“A Jeep.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“She’s four, Connor, not sixteen.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s for the doll.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh. Cowboys drive Jeeps?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor sighs. The sigh that Gavin has heard a hundred times when he’s stressed, when he’s tired of Gavin’s jokes. But usually if he presses, Connor will finally smile, he’ll finally laugh, he’ll let Gavin climb on his lap and kiss him and help ease the tension and stress away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But that’s not going to happen, no matter how much Gavin wishes it would.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Did you get a lawyer yet?” Connor asks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Oh.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“N-No, not yet. Did you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ve been raising a three-year-old alone, Gavin, I’ve been busy.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Right. Sorry. Are you—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I have to go. Ellie’s making a mess. I’ll see you next weekend.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay. I love you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The line is quiet for a long moment. Gavin can hear the sound of Ellie laughing, of something plastic hitting the ground. He can hear the sound of him kicking himself for automatically saying those words like they were nothing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Goodbye, Gavin.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He nods, pressing his lips together tightly until he hears the line go dead.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s like deja vu in some sick sense when he comes to Elijah’s place late that night, his head foggy and tired, the cab leaving him at the end of Elijah’s stupidly long driveway. He saw Eli sitting there before he made his way up, but he didn’t say anything until he reached the ramp up to the house.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hi.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I need you to go home, Gavin.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Kicking me out?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes,” he says, nodding. “Go back to your husband.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He won’t be my husband for long.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then go somewhere else.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Did I do something?” Gavin asks. “Because if I recall, you said I could cry my eyes out and drink your booze.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I thought it was going to be a one-night thing. Not three weeks. You can’t keep doing this. You’re destroying yourself.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And rather than offer me any help, you’re just kicking me out?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sending you </span>
  <em>
    <span>home, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Gavin. That is helping you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah. Back to the guy who probably wishes I was dead.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Connor loves you,” Elijah says, standing up. “And I love you. But you’re ruining your life right now.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Already fucking ruined,” he whispers, kicking at the dirt. “Shit doesn’t matter anymore.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elijah nods, putting his hands in the pockets of his jacket, “Guess it doesn’t matter that you should try for Ellie, right? Just become a piece of shit dirtbag of a father so you can make sure things are just as shitty for her as they are for you, huh?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fuck you, Eli. I love her. Dad never loved us.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Prove it. Because you’re here and you haven’t showered since you first got here and you don’t pick up after yourself and you’re drunk all the fucking time. Prove that you aren’t like him, because from where I am, you’re two steps away from being just like him.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t know why he does it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Because all it does is prove his point.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Gavin lurches forward and slams his fist against Eli’s face and it isn’t until he feels blood dripping from Elijah’s nose and the red on his hands that he stops hitting him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he knows without Elijah telling him that he can’t come back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He can’t even stay here for another night.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The door to the house has been left open, Hank standing guard on the porch as party guests come and go. Ellie has a few friends in the neighborhood, a few kids a year older than her, that have come with their parents and their presents. A stack of gifts form on a table. Bright wrapping paper and shiny gift bags making a mountain for her. Ellie has one thing that she most certainly didn’t get from him or Gavin: her ability to make friends.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s a bit of a let down, sometimes. A four-year-old is not only better at making them but keeping them, too, and Connor doubts it’s his ability to converse with the parents to make play dates, since the majority of them are formed out of a necessity for him to go to work, and Hank is usually the one to take her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He ices the last letter on the cake, setting the bag aside as he glances up to the newest arrival and the guest he’d been looking forward to the least.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hello, Gavin.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hi.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Ellie’s outside.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Who’s watching her?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Chris and his wife. They said they’d lend a hand.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How many kids do you have running around out there?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Probably five but it feels like ten.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I bet,” Gavin says quietly, moving toward the island. “And how are you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Tired.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Me too.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor sighs, turning away from him. He needs to start rinsing out the bowl that he mixed the icing in, or it’ll stick to the sides and it’ll be a pain to get clean. He tells himself he’s not doing it to avoid Gavin’s gaze, but he knows it isn’t true. He feels it on his back, he feels it like he feels the old need of want back again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He misses Gavin. He misses those mornings when Gavin would be here and he’d sit tired and exhausted at the table, slumped against his hand and falling asleep there even with Ellie’s legs kicking her hands banging plastic spoons and plates against her table.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He misses the times when Gavin would come home after dinner was done and he’d wrap his arms around Connor’s waist when he was doing the dishes and lean against him, like he could stay there forever.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You should go outside,” Connor says, peering through the window out at the kids. “Ellie misses you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I will.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Especially if you aren’t going to be here long,” Connor carries on, like Gavin hadn’t said anything at all. “You shouldn’t waste your time inside.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Connor? Can we talk?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” he whispers, but he knows it’s so quiet that Gavin can’t hear it over the sound of the running water. He bangs the metal bowl against the side of the sink, like the noise would scare Gavin off, but he knows it won’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A hand reaches forward, shutting off the water, and when Connor looks up, Gavin is standing too close to him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I asked you a question.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And I told you to go see your daughter.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin’s jaw clenches as he looks away, leaning back against the counter, “I wanted to talk to you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I hope you didn’t come here just for that,” Connor whispers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No. I came here for Ellie. And you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Because I wanted to tell you I’m sorry,” Gavin says. “For telling you that I love you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The bowl slips from Connor’s hand, landing crooked against the sink, water splashing out against his shirt. “That all?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah. That’s all.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then get the hell away from me,” Connor whispers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor is watching him. Gavin knows he is, just like he knows Connor is waiting for him to leave the party. But he doesn’t want to. It’s been a long time since he saw Ellie, and an even longer time since he got to actually spend time with her beyond reading bedtime stories and singing lullabies to get her to sleep.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He plays the part of an evil dragon in the kids make-pretend. Ellie is the princess, and the other kids he really has no idea what role they’re playing, but he’s good at the job he’s doing, because Ellie is laughing in that squeal of hers that he used to challenge Connor to get her to make, and Connor always failed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin is tackled to the ground, the kids piling up on him. He feigns death, spying on Connor through a cracked eye. He sees that small smile on his face. The one so twisted with sadness it can barely exist.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He stays at the party until the adults come back to take their children. One by one they disappear. The cake Connor made is completely gone, the presents in Ellie’s room but the trash and the plastic packaging left scattered across the living room. He doesn’t want to go, even after Ellie’s down to sleep and Chris and Hank both leave.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It doesn’t feel right leaving, but he knows he has to.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You don’t have to help,” Connor says. “I can do it myself.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin picks up the last piece of wrapping paper, folding it up and tucking it inside the recycle bin, “It’s fine. You can’t do it all alone.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can. I just said I could.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Look, is it really going to hurt you if I pick up some trash?” Gavin asks, looking back to him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes,” Connor says. “Yes, it is. So just go.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Because it’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>you, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Gavin. Today was Ellie’s birthday and she was so happy and she had so much fun but I hated it. I hated you being here. It hurts seeing you here, okay? So can you please just </span>
  <em>
    <span>go?”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Connor, I—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Just go,” he says quietly. “Just get out. Please.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I didn’t mean to upset you, Con.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What did you expect when you told me you wanted to get a divorce?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin sighs, setting the bin down, “I don’t know. I never wanted to hurt you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What, you thought I’d be overjoyed about it?” Connor shakes his head. “You really are stupid, aren’t you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We’d be better off,” Gavin says quietly. “You know that, don’t you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m raising our daughter alone, Gavin. You think that’s better off? I have to tell her every day that you’re off doing something more important than seeing her. Do you know how much it hurts having to tell her that? That her papa is off living some other life? I have to lie to her, Gavin. Every single day I have to lie to her. I never wanted this. I never wanted to lose you. I never wanted a divorce. You made that decision because it’d be easier for </span>
  <em>
    <span>you, </span>
  </em>
  <span>not for </span>
  <em>
    <span>us.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I didn’t… I don’t…” he goes quiet. He watches Connor sit down on the couch, his face in his hands. “Connor?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I keep remembering… years and years ago, when we almost broke up after our first engagement. Do you remember?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We made a promise not to break each other’s hearts. Do you remember that?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why did we ever make such a stupid promise?” Connor asks quietly, in that voice that sounds so fragile, that voice Gavin knows well. He’s crying, but he’s covering it up as best as he can. “Why did I ever think either of us could stick to it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We were stupid.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor laughs, “I suppose we were.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin sits down beside him. The overwhelming need to comfort him conflicting with his desire to run away and not make Connor think he’s going to stay. He doesn’t know what to do. But he wants to hold his hand, he wants to hug him, he wants to brush those tears away and press kisses against his cheeks instead. He wants to tell him he loves him again. He wants to lie and say they’ll be okay.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But they aren’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So he just sits beside Connor on the couch, his hands in fists, desperately needing something to do with himself to prevent the need to hold onto the only person he’s properly loved in a while.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You said you were scared I wouldn’t fight for you,” Connor says finally. “I want to fight for you, Gavin. But I don’t know how. You just push me away again and again, and I’m not going to beg you. I can’t beg you to love me, Gavin.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t need to. Gavin is already there. He already loves Connor. He’s never going to stop loving him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Connor—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sometimes I hate you,” he says. “For how much you made me love you. I hate you so much sometimes it hurts.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sorry.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor looks up to him, his hand brushing the tears away, “Then stay.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can’t.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why not? Why won’t you tell me why you’re doing this?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Because you’ll make me change my mind.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then let me change your mind if it’s that fixable,” Connor whispers. “Don’t run from me. Don’t disappear. There’s nothing you could’ve done that would break us, Gavin.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That’s not true. It’s just there’s nothing Gavin </span>
  <em>
    <span>would </span>
  </em>
  <span>do that could break them. He wouldn’t cheat on Connor. He wouldn’t hurt him like that. He wouldn’t exploit their trust or their love. But he’s already chosen his job over his relationship with his kid. He’s already done that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Connor, I can’t. You can’t do this. You can’t change it. It’s already happening.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then tell me you don’t love me. Tell me that this is over. If you can’t say it, I’m not going to let you leave.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Connor—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Tell me you don’t love me, Gavin, and I’ll let you go.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He can’t. He can’t and Connor knows that. He keeps trying, his mouth keeps opening, the words keep trying to form. But they can’t. There are so many lies he can tell. There is only so much energy he has to make Connor despise him, and he’s failing at every chance.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“See?” Connor says quietly. “We can’t be hopeless if you can’t even say it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It doesn’t mean we should be together.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No. It means we should </span>
  <em>
    <span>try.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know how.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ll help you,” he leans forward, pressing in close to Gavin’s space. He doesn’t move, he lets Connor get closer, he lets the kiss be pressed against his lips. Gentle and soft and so much of what he’s wanted this past month. “Let me help you, Gavin.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t know why he nods. He doesn’t know why he accepts Connor into his space. He doesn’t know why he’s doing this.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The sex is a mistake. Connor knows that. He knows it while it’s happening, with Gavin underneath him, holding him down close, never letting their lips part long enough for it to be over as quickly as it had been in the last few months of their relationship, when they did it like a chore instead of something either of them enjoyed. He knows the sex is a mistake, but it doesn’t stop him from pulling Gavin up the stairs to the bedroom, of doing it a second time, of holding onto him with a tight grip and biting Gavin’s shoulder and wishing that the mark would stay forever and that somehow that mark would mean Gavin would stay forever, too.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he knows it’s stupid.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he doesn’t know why when he wakes up the next morning, alone in the empty bed, that he feels so used and dirty and wrong for thinking that somehow sex would solve their problems, when it’s proven to fail them routinely beforehand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin sits outside on the fire escape, bent up small against the brick exterior. He keeps taking the ring off and putting it back on again. Every time he gets up the courage to get rid of it, telling himself eventually he won’t have the right to wear it, he feels naked without it. He hasn’t taken it off for more than cleaning it since they got married. He remembers almost losing it down the drain once, because it fell off when he was doing dishes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It isn’t just the strange nature of not wearing it, either.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Every time he takes it off, he holds onto it like he’s afraid he’s going to drop it. He doesn’t want to lose it. Not by accident and not on purpose.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s been two weeks. A back and forth of him trying his hardest to pretend that nothing happened. Gavin doesn’t call him. They haven’t texted beyond basic needs to have the other pick up Ellie. The only thing Connor can be grateful for right now is that they aren’t working at the same place. At least he doesn’t have to see him and pretend he’s okay when he isn’t. But he wonders if it would help. If being around him would force the two to talk.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he wants to.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>All he wants to do is talk.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor has so many words stuck inside of him trying their hardest to get out. He wants to excise all the damage inside of him and free himself of it. He has all these memories that keep surfacing. Minute things that were never really all that bad but still stung.  Sometimes they weigh so heavily on him all at once he questions if this is for the best. But it’s not. Connor still loves him. He still wants him back. These things are problems they can fix, if they just </span>
  <em>
    <span>try.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He dials Gavin’s number, sitting in the back of the kitchen, watching Ellie play with her toys. A dinosaur with a rather good British accent trying to talk his way out of his imprisonment by a goat.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hello?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Where are you?” he asks quietly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Connor—?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes. Where are you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“At a friend’s place. Why?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Can you text me the address?” Connor asks. “I need to talk to you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We’re on the phone right now—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Face to face, Gavin. I need to see you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can come over. Just give me ten minutes.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” he whispers. “You can’t come here.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Because I said so. Give me your address.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin sighs, a long quiet moment on the other side of the phone, “Tell me why I can’t go there, Connor. I’ll give you the address if you tell me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t want Ellie to see you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh,” he whispers. “I—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If she sees you, she’ll want you to stay and I don’t want you to stay,” he replies. “I can’t let her think you’re going to be here when you aren’t.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m going to leave her with Hank.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“After I die?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You made it seem like that was something in your will.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor bites back a pained laugh, “I just meant for today, Gavin. But I would. You know that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Chris would be better. Ellie gets along with his kids.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Stop trying to make this funny,” he says. “I’m not going to laugh at your jokes right now, Gavin.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What a shame,” Gavin whispers. “I miss your laugh.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then why did you leave? Why would you leave me if you miss me so badly?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ll text you the address,” he replies. “I have to go.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin hangs up, and Connor is left there with the phone in his hand, brushing away his tears and curling up smaller and smaller until he can feel like nothing. He watches Ellie play with her toys, watches her fake a prison break through the bars on the kitchen chairs and he wants to stop having to hold back his tears. He wants to stop feeling so lonely and empty.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mostly, though, he just wants Gavin to stop hurting him like this.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin let's Connor into the apartment, the two of them sitting opposite of each other in the chairs centered around the coffee table. They’ve sat in silence for ten minutes before Connor finally sighs, sitting up a little straighter.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think we should set everything on the table,” Connor says, his voice even. “About what we want.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think we both know what we want.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor shakes his head, “No. I have no idea what you want. I just know what you keep telling me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What else am I supposed to say?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The truth.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I told you I wanted a divorce,” Gavin says. “What else is there?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t believe you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And so the conversation fucking comes back again,” Gavin mutters. “We can’t keep talking in circles, Connor.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then we don’t. Tell me why or…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Or what?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Or we get a divorce,” Connor says. “And I never see you again. And if I never see you again, you never see Ellie again.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’d take her away from me?” Gavin asks, feeling annoyance and rage start to kick at his insides. But mostly he feels the pain of Connor’s words. The sharp edges of them. How fucking cruel and callous he must be to even threaten such a thing. “She’s my daughter.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“She’s mine, too. And you barely see her anyway, so don’t act like this would be such a terrible thing for either of you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fuck you, Connor. You can’t fucking say that. You don’t know how much it hurts to be away from her, you have her all the time. You work from home just to watch her.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And if you cared more—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t,” Gavin says. “Don’t say another word or I’ll—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’ll kill me? Who cares?” Connor whispers. “I don’t know what else to do, Gavin. You’re leaving me with no choice. I can’t be near you. It hurts too much.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You can’t take her away from me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then talk to me. Please. I can’t keep begging you to talk to me, Gavin. All I want is for you to tell me why this is happening and you won’t say anything,” he says. “All I want is for you to come home.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can’t.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But </span>
  <em>
    <span>why?” </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Because this is what he does.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He breaks Connor’s heart because he’s still the stupid idiot he was years and years ago when they met. Because he can’t stop himself from running. Because he can’t believe that he deserves any of this. Because even when he tries to be a good person, he’s still fucking horrible. Gavin has tried not to be this broken. He tried for years and for a while the high of someone like Connor loving him felt like it closed some of those gaps inside of him but they ripped back open over time, telling him again and again that this isn’t worth it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He </span>
  </em>
  <span>isn’t worth it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>never </span>
  </em>
  <span>going to be worth it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You can’t call me and tell me you miss my laugh and come over and have sex with me and you can’t tell me you love me and—” he pauses, and when Gavin looks up he realizes it’s because Connor’s hand is on his chest, like he’s trying to still his fake lungs trying so hard to breathe past the tears, like he’s hyperventilating. “You c-can’t do this to me, Gavin.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wants to tell him he’s sorry. He wants to apologize, but he knows it’ll only make it worse.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If I’m hurting you this badly why do you think it’s a good idea if we get back together?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Because it hurts that you’re leaving, that you’re </span>
  <em>
    <span>gone, </span>
  </em>
  <span>not that you’re there with me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How many times do I have to break your heart before I become unforgivable, Connor?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“As long as you come back—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t you realize how fucked that is?” Gavin whispers. “Don’t you realize how stupid it is to keep thinking it’s okay as long as I’m there?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sorry, my husband and the father of my kid is trying to leave me, I’m not really thinking rationally anymore. Especially when I know you still love me and care about me. I might not know why you’re doing this to me, Gavin, but I know that every time we’ve broken up before it was over the stupidest things.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That doesn’t mean the same logic applies now.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If it didn’t, wouldn’t you tell me why you left me?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Maybe.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe Connor was onto something when he said he’d take Ellie away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s a horrible father. He’s a terrible husband. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m going to call a lawyer tomorrow,” Gavin says quietly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, you’re not. You’re going to tell me why.” he stands up, turning away from him, crossing his arms tightly to cover his chest, “You think I’m just going to let this go, aren’t you? You think you saying—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin watches his face fall. The anger drifts away as Connor steps forward to the shelf beside the couch. His hand reaches out tentatively, picking up the picture frame.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This is Warner’s place,” he says quietly. “You’re staying with… you’re staying with Warner?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s a strike of fear that flies through him as he stands up. The urge to tell him no.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Connor—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How long have you been sleeping with him?” he asks quietly, turning around. “Was it before or after—How… how many of those nights you spent at work instead of coming home were spent here?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His mouth closes, clamping down hard on his tongue. He could let Connor think this. He could let Connor think he was cheating on him for years. It would make Connor give this up. He knows it would. They have both had too many conversations about how much they wouldn’t forgive each other if something like that happened. Maybe not precisely those words, but—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But telling each other how much they’re worried they’re never going to be enough.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And cheating would just prove that, wouldn’t it? That Connor isn’t enough.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The part of Gavin that loves him, though, doesn’t want him to ever think that. He doesn’t want him to ever believe that’s how he views him. He would never betray Connor like that. He couldn’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So why can’t he open his mouth and tell Connor that he has it wrong?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why didn’t you just tell me?” Connor whispers. The picture frame in his hand slips free, falling against the floor. The glass doesn’t shatter, but it feels like it does. It feels like Connor’s words are little shards piercing his heart and his lungs and he’s going to bleed out here, unable to tell him he’s wrong. “You were already breaking my heart why didn’t you just go for it? Why’d you have to dance around it? Why’d you… why’d you sleep with me? Why would you ever make me believe…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“C-Connor—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I hate you,” he says, like the words surprise him. So quiet and soft but so heartbreakingly painful. “I hate you. And that’s not a lie this time, it’s not a joke, it’s just the truth. Don’t ever come near me again.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He pulls the ring from his finger, setting it down where the picture used to be, his gaze carefully avoiding Gavin’s before he turns to leave.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Gavin watches him go.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He lets his heart be ripped to shreds over and over again until it feels like there’s nothing left. And when the door is closed, he picks up the ring with a shaking hand, holding it tight, letting the metal dig against his palm.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Warner comes home two hours later and finds Gavin curled up in the small space between the bed and the window, the blankets drawn around his shoulder like the darkness will do something to help him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What happened?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Nothing. It’s over.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Isn’t that what you wanted?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He looks up, pressing cold fingertips to his eyes, trying to do something to help ease the pain of crying, “I was stupid. I just… I didn’t think it’d hurt this bad.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What’d you expect to happen when you lost Connor?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“To be relieved.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Relieved that he wasn’t Connor’s burden anymore. But he misses Ellie so badly and he misses Connor and he can’t remember the last time he was truly happy.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Did you sign papers yet?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then it’s not really over.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s over, Warner,” he whispers. “You didn’t see his face. We’re done. He thinks I was cheating on him.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But you weren’t.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No. I wouldn’t.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why don’t you tell him that?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin sighs, hiding underneath the blanket again. It’s safer in the dark. He doesn’t have Warner watching him, judging him. “Because this is what I wanted, remember? I wanted him to be free so he could be happy. That’s all I ever wanted.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And all he ever wanted was his husband at home,” Warner whispers. “You got kicked off the force, Gavin. You could just get a new job and spend time with your kid.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s not that easy. It’s not about that anymore.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No. I guess not. If it were, you wouldn’t be here with me when you have someone like Connor who loves you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He told me he hated me today.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Because of a lie,” Warner says. “Can I ask you something?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You and him broke up a few times. Has it always been like this?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And when you broke up with me did it hurt this badly?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>No.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It still hurt. It hurt because he lost his friend and it hurt because he was terrified that Warner was a one-time thing and that nobody else could ever love him, but it didn’t hurt like</span>
  <em>
    <span> this.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I wish I could’ve been with you,” Gavin says.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s not what I asked.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He pulls back the blanket, leaning against the wall, “I never wanted to lose you, either, Warner. But no. Connor is different.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Right,” he says. “You had a kid with him. You married him. But you still ran away.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s what I’m best at.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Maybe you should try to be better at something else.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Like what?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Being the person you want to be. You’re already half-way there.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m not.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You </span>
  <em>
    <span>are,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Warner says. “You’re funny and you’re kind, you just self-sabotage. You talked about getting help all those years and you never did it. Don’t you think if you did, you could be with Connor again?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s never going to be the same.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then it won’t be the same. It </span>
  <em>
    <span>shouldn’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>be the same. You guys fought and you broke up, but you kept coming back together for a reason. So this time make it work. Go to couples therapy. Be happy. Don’t make me hate you for losing you to somebody that you aren’t with anymore.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You want me and Connor to get together so you can feel better about our breakup?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah. I do. I know when you were with him you were happy and that’s all I ever wanted.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you still love me, Warner?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Not that way. Not anymore,” he says quietly. But there’s something about his face that makes Gavin not believe him. That there should be a </span>
  <em>
    <span>sometimes, though, </span>
  </em>
  <span>added onto the end of it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sorry about everything.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Me too. I’d be a lot less sorry if you talked to Connor and told him the truth.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I still don’t think we’re a good idea, Warner.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then give me another hour to talk you into it. How about that?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think I want to sell the house,” Connor says, curled up on the couch with Sumo and Marshmallow, buried underneath the dogs which only do a sliver to help ease the pain. “I don’t think I can be there anymore.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can help,” Hank says. “I can give you the number of my divorce lawyer, too. When me and Cole’s mom separated he made it easy to not have to communicate face to face.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Is that necessary?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know. Is it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor shrugs, looking up to the ceiling, “I didn’t think this was going to be how it ended. I thought… if we had to break up that it would be something outside of our power.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Like death?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah,” he whispers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He thought they would be happy forever. He thought that happiness would only be taken away by Gavin dying. They survived losing their kids. Why couldn’t they survive this?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sorry, Connor.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He nods, closing his eyes. Wanting to be alone for a little while. Wanting to not exist. Wanting beyond anything for someone to hold onto him and for that someone to be Gavin, before he remembers that Gavin is the last person he wants to be around.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thanks for watching Ellie today.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Always. I’m always here for you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin paces back and forth across the living room, the phone held to his ear as it rings for the tenth time that night, but this time the line picks up, “Eli--”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What do you want, Gavin?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“To talk,” he says, even though he is tired of talking. He is tired of conversing. He just wants to shut down and never say anything again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“About?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You know what about,” he says. “I’m sorry.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That all?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You want me to grovel?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well,” Elijah sighs. “Yeah.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fine. Give me a second, I have a bad  and you might not physically be here, but I’ll get down my knees and mime licking your boot.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Gross.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah. I know. But you wanted me to grovel.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Not like that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fucking Christ, Eli,” he mutters. “I’m sorry. I really am. You pissed me off. The worst thing I could’ve ever imagined was being like dad and I was.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I shouldn’t have provoked you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Doesn’t give me the right to hit you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No. But you did.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Can you forgive me?” Gavin whispers. “Because I really can’t lose you, too. You’re all the family I have left.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay,” he replies. “Coffee? Tomorrow?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That sounds nice.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How about this place?” Connor asks, flipping through the pictures on the laptop. The house is small and tiny—a two bedroom thing with no yard and a small kitchen, but he doesn’t know how much money he can spend on a place. The house him and Gavin got was cheap because of its issues, but he doesn’t have time to fix up another place. And he doesn’t want Ellie living in limbo for too long.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why can’t we stay where we are?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s too big for us, El.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What about my brothers and sisters?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You don’t have any brothers or sisters,” he says with a small smile. But he’s thinking of June and Hank. He’s thinking of his other kids ripped away from him and sent off somewhere else.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Maybe I should get some.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He laughs, “It’s not that easy.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Maybe papa will help.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Papa can’t help anymore,” he whispers. “We have to pick somewhere new. You can paint your room whatever you want. I promise.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Can I paint yours, too?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He nods, “Of course, El. I trust your choices.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Good morning, baby brother.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t fucking call me baby brother,” Gavin says, sitting down across from him in the booth. He’s never been at a restaurant this early. The sun rose maybe an hour ago. He wants to go back to sleep. He stayed up far too late last night scribbling away in a journal, feeling like every word he added was more pointless than the last. “I’m two months younger than you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“July to October isn’t two months.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t fucking question my math. You know I failed Chemistry. Don’t laugh at me. It’s too fucking early for this,” he sighs. “I didn’t think by ‘let’s get coffee tomorrow,’ it’d be at six in the morning.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t have coffee after seven. Chloe says it should be there to wake me up, not to sustain me throughout the day.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Chloe is an idiot.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Chloe didn’t fail Chemistry.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin leans forward, narrowing his eyes at him, “You’re the worst. You kick me out of your place and then you insult me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I was trying to help you, Gavin.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah. I know,” he says, leaning back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wait, what? You know? No yelling at me for interfering with your life?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No. No yelling,” Gavin says quietly. “I, uh… started seeing a therapist last month. She said I needed to have more perspective on why people do things.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And that’s working?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know. I want to quit all the time, you know? I mean it’s only been two months but every time she gives me an assignment, I want to call her up and cancel my next appointment.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But you didn’t?” Eli asks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s progress. Already seems like a good decision. Why’d you do it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Warner.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elijah coughs, setting his coffee down as he picks up a napkin to cover his mouth, “Excuse me?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“After you kicked me out I had to go somewhere, Eli.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes. Back home. To your </span>
  <em>
    <span>husband. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Not your ex.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s not like that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“No,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Gavin says, his voice firm, vicious. “No. I wouldn’t do that to Connor.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You two are separated, it wouldn’t be cheating, you know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We aren’t divorced yet. Not technically. It wouldn’t be right. But,” he shrugs, leans back. “Connor asked me to come over tomorrow to pick up the papers, though.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh?” Elijah says quietly. “I didn’t realize… Are you okay?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” he whispers. “Hence the therapy. Warner told me I should tell him I want him back but it’s too late, I think. He’s selling the house. Neither of us want it and I wasn’t going to put up a fight about keeping it. It’s probably for the better.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And Ellie?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin heaves out a breath, “The lawyers helped figure out a custody agreement but Connor still wants to limit our contact together as much as possible but he agreed to letting me see her on the weekends and coming over on holidays. But it’ll be with Hank. He won’t be there. He’s made it pretty clear that if we go through with this me and him won’t ever see or speak to each other again.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you okay with that?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fuck no, Eli,” he whispers. “I want him back. I want my daughter. I always thought my life was going to end up shitty and then I had Connor and I never imagined that the shitty part of my life would be supervised visits on fucking Halloween.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But it’s too late to fix this?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He’s selling the house, Eli. He told me he hated me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you think he was telling the truth?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I do.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He makes sure Ellie is gone before Gavin arrives. He tries his best to make sure she doesn’t see him more than she has to. Connor isn’t trying to be cruel. He’s trying to protect her. She gets excited when she sees him. She wants to play. She thinks he’s not going to leave, no matter how many times he does. She thinks it’s going to go back to what it was before. Connor hasn’t even figured out how to tell her what’s happening yet. He’s just lucky she isn’t old enough to know that he’s lying.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But when Gavin does show up, he opens the door and walks away quickly, back to the kitchen to find the papers on the edge of the counter. He doesn’t say a word as Gavin follows him inside, looking around the place for the first time in three weeks. All the pictures have been taken off the walls. Most of the clutter has been cleared up. He’s trying his best to make it look clean and open for buyers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You have any offers?” Gavin asks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” he says. “I haven’t contacted a realtor. I thought I should talk to you about that stuff and I…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Didn’t want to talk to me?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” Connor replies. “I didn’t. The papers are right here. I already signed them.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay. Can we… can we talk about that?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If there’s anything you want, you can have it. I don’t want to deal with fighting over legal things anymore, Gavin. I’m tired.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s not what I want.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then what is it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, firstly, can you look at me?” Gavin asks quietly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor blinks once, staring hard at the granite surface of their countertop, remembering all the times he cut up food or prepared lunches, all the times he sat on the other side of the island doing paperwork. The mornings that Gavin would come downstairs and press a kiss against his cheek on his way out to work.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He looks up slowly, like putting it off for as long as possible will save him, but it doesn’t. Gavin looks just as sad and as serious as Connor thought he would.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sorry,” Gavin says. “Warner and—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor makes a noise, pained and disgusted as he turns away from Gavin. Not just his gaze this time but his entire body, his arms on his stomach like he’s going to collapse.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t want to hear about him, Gavin. So I don’t care about whatever love story you have with him. It’s not going to change anything.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And if I said there was no love story?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hurts just as bad knowing he meant nothing but sex.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We didn’t sleep together.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor’s jaw tightens, his eyes settling on the view of the backyard through the window.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I didn’t cheat on you, Connor.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then why say you did?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I didn’t know how else to get you to go through with this,” Gavin says. “I thought it was our only choice.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“’Our only choice’?” Connor asks, looking back to him. “I gave you plenty of choices. I told you you could come home. I told you we could talk about whatever this was and you lied to me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And now what? You think telling me you didn’t cheat on me is… what? What do you think that’s going to change?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know. Nothing. I just wanted you to know the truth.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“God, Gavin,” he whispers. “Just go, will you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Connor—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You were right. You hurt me over and over again and I just kept letting you come back. I begged for you, and the only thing that hurt worse than you leaving was begging for you and being rejected every single time.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m not asking to come back. I don’t think we’re good together. I can’t even remember the last time you told me you loved me before all this, so I don’t know why we would bother. You can hate me. That’s fine. I just want you to know the truth.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It was the day you left.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I told you I loved you the day you left,” Connor says. “That morning you woke up and you barely looked at me and you ran out the door and I called after you and told you I loved you, but you didn’t say it back. You didn’t look at me. You just left. And then I came home and you told me you wanted a divorce.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I didn’t hear you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No. You never did, did you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sorry,” Gavin whispers. “I’m sorry I couldn’t ever believe you really loved me. It wasn’t your fault. It’s not your fault I’m like this still.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I begged for you to come back, Gavin, I tried </span>
  <em>
    <span>so hard </span>
  </em>
  <span>to tell you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know. I’m sorry.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think you should go,” Connor says quietly. “There’s not a reason you need to be here anymore.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he doesn’t move. Gavin lingers there, making the face that Connor has seen him do a thousand times before. Twisted and angry and trying so hard not to cry. And there has been a thousand times that Connor has curled up beside him and placed a kiss on his clenched jaw and let him cry on his shoulder for a little while, knowing that his presence helped ease the pain.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He can’t do it this time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He can’t do it again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ll sign the papers,” Gavin whispers. “I promise.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Make sure you hold on tight, okay?” Gavin says, holding onto the metal bars of the merry-go-round. He runs fast, spinning it around until his legs can’t keep up with the momentum and he steps off to the side, watching Ellie spin around in a blur of neon colors.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s his first weekend with her, officially. The first time Connor has let him take her away from the house and be around her for more than ten minutes. It’s fine. He’s angry about it but he’s more mad at himself than he is with Connor. If their situations were reversed, if Connor was never home and never around and asked to end everything, he thinks he might’ve done the same thing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Gavin?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What?” he says, turning away to face Hank.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I asked you a question.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I didn’t hear it,” he says, kicking a rock towards him. “I was pretending you weren’t here.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I got that,” he crosses his arms. “Connor wants to know when you’re going to sign the papers.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He shrugs, looking away back to Ellie as the merry-go-round starts to slow but the smile on her face doesn’t. Is this really how it’s going to be? Hank always watching over his shoulder, a few spare days spent with her? He can’t even have her for the weekend because he’s still staying with Warner, still trying to find a job that’s going to pay well enough to have a place where she can stay with him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re the one that wanted this, Gavin. Don’t drag it out longer than it has to.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Ellie, you want to spin again?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He got the call over an hour ago. The traffic in the city is horrible this time of day, but he made it faster than he anticipated, though shoving his way through the hospital and being directed to a room didn’t do anything to stop the anxiety coiled inside of him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor hasn’t been in a hospital since a few weeks after the revolution, when he showed up here when Hank was in a car accident. A minor thing, in terms of physical damage. A major thing in terms of Hank being forced into rehab and the alcohol in his place tossed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Gavin?” he says quietly, pushing the door open.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He watches him turn around slowly, facing Connor with fear written across his face, “I’m sorry—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Is Ellie okay?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“She’s fine. She broke her arm,” he says quietly, moving away from the empty bed. “I-I’m sorry, Connor, I should’ve been watching her more closely—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor steps forward, something inside of him melting away as he reaches for Gavin and pulls him close, hugging him tight, “What happened?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I—She—” he sighs. “I was spinning her around at the park and she let go and she fell off and I…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I stepped on her arm. I wasn’t looking. I was running and I—” he buries his face against Connor’s neck, tears wetting Connor’s skin. “I’m so sorry, Connor, I didn’t mean to hurt her, please don’t take her away from me I’m so sorry—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m not going to take her from you,” Connor whispers. “It was an accident.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin clings to him tighter. It’s a painful hug with how hard he’s wrapped up onto him, “But you said before—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I was stupid. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I was just mad. I wouldn’t take her from you, Gavin. I would never take her from you.” Connor pulls back, far enough to tip Gavin’s chin up, to brush the tears from his cheeks, to press a soft kiss against his forehead. Automatic things that even in the process of doing he can’t stop himself. Connor glances over to Ellie on the bed, sleeping soundly, “Why didn’t they release her?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“She hit her head when she fell, they wanted to keep her overnight for observation, but it’s just a precaution.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay,” Connor whispers. “Okay. And you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What about me?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you okay?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fucking horrible dad just like I always thought I’d be, but yeah.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re not a horrible dad.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Just a horrible husband,” Gavin tries to pull away from him, but Connor doesn’t let him. He wraps his arms around Gavin’s shoulders a little tighter. He’s stronger than him. He always has been. “Con…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What are you talking about?” he whispers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I was awful to you. You don’t have to pretend I wasn’t just to make me feel better.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then I won’t pretend. But you weren’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>horrible</span>
  </em>
  <span>. You think I would’ve wanted a kid with you if you were horrible?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think you’re really stupid sometimes, yeah.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor sighs, “Nevermind. You </span>
  <em>
    <span>are </span>
  </em>
  <span>horrible.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We already made our decisions with this. There’s no going back.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s why you’ve signed the papers, right?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin looks up to him, trying to retreat again. This time Connor’s grip turns aggressive, pulling him back to his side. “It’s not that simple. Knowing we shouldn’t be together doesn’t make it easy to sign them.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Because you don’t want to.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You said you were done begging for me, Connor—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I am. You can still ask to come back,” he whispers. “You could still come home.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re selling the house, Con. There isn’t a home anymore.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“There’s always a home.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And there aren’t any offers, anyway, but he doesn’t add that part. He hasn’t contacted a realtor yet. He’s just continued to empty the place of all the memories they’ve made and stuffed them away in storage units or Hank’s place.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We can’t do this again, Connor,” Gavin whispers. “We can’t fight about this.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So we don’t fight. Ask to come home and I’ll say yes. Or… walk out the door and don’t come back.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What kind of a choice is that, Con?” he asks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s the only one I have for you. I can’t have you as a friend, do you know how much that would hurt?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“More than this.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor nods, “I can’t pretend I don’t love you, you know that. I’ve never been able to pretend that I don’t love you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We’re bad actors,” Gavin whispers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Really bad.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin’s mouth twitches into a small smile, “Connor, I—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Daddy?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor looks away from him, pulling from him automatically to move to the bed, “Hey, Ellie. I heard about your arm. I got here as fast as I could, I’m sorry. Does it hurt?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She nods, “But it was just an accident. He didn’t mean to.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, I know, Ellie. He would never hurt you on purpose. I’m not mad at him.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then where is he?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He looks back towards the doorway, empty and devoid of him. He feels the little bit of hope he had in him dissolve slowly as he looks back, “I’m sorry, sweetie, he left. He’ll pick you up tomorrow. I’ll stay with you tonight, okay?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was a quick trade-off that Gavin witnessed the next morning, around ten, when Hank entered the hospital and five minutes later Connor headed out, disappearing into the garage. Gavin’s been here for two hours, waiting for the call that said he could come pick up Ellie. It was already decided that he would have her today. This didn’t change anything. His plans even remained the same: spoil Ellie rotten so she doesn’t hate him quite so much in ten years when the damage of whatever this is finally starts to set in.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But there is something different about seeing Connor and Hank make the trade off just to keep Gavin out of Connor’s sights. Last night didn’t change anything.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It shouldn’t have.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It almost did.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was standing there, feeling Connor hold him, feeling that final option weighing between him, knowing how much doing that was hurting them both, and he thought—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe. Maybe he could try.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then he saw Connor by the bed and he knew that if he had never taken Ellie to begin with, she wouldn’t have been there.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s all his fault. Everything is all his fault.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he keeps going back to the thought that he’ll never see Connor again unless something horrible happens to Ellie. He’ll never have his friend back. He’ll never have those good moments between them that weren’t purely romantic or sexual. He’ll never have someone tease him about how he cuts vegetables or his love of coffee. And will Connor feed the stray cats that come to the backyard? Will he think of Gavin when he does it? Will they be able to both go to Ellie’s wedding if she gets married? Will they allow themselves the pain of seeing each other at her graduation?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What if Connor moves away? Not just out of the house, but out of the state? He’d have to follow after them. Of course he would. He’d still be chasing him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor is right on the fact that they won’t be able to see each other as friends. Gavin will never be able to view Connor as anything but the man he loves again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Elijah and Ellie are all he has left now if they finalize the divorce, and he can’t sit around with Elijah until he’s old and ancient, and he barely has Ellie. The few friends he has have all taken Connor’s side, maybe even in the subtlest of ways.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t want Connor back because he’s lonely. He wants him back because he loves him and he can’t imagine his life without him anymore. He doesn’t need Connor to be happy. He could find a way to make himself content.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But it isn’t about need, is it?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s about what he </span>
  <em>
    <span>wants.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He leaves Ellie with Hank before he walks the short distance to their house, directed there by Hank when he asked where Connor was. He knocks on the door, finding it cracked open but he waits until Connor comes to the other side to let him in. It doesn’t feel right to just step inside anymore.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hi.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hi,” Gavin says quietly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What are you doing here?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Just wanted to talk.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“About?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Nothing,” he whispers, shaking his head. “Sorry.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“‘Sorry’?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin bites his lip, glancing back at the car behind him, “I left Ellie’s at Hank’s. I know that’s where you’re staying.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes. And?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, nothing. I…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why are you so nervous, Gavin?” Connor asks. “We’ve known each other for a long time. What’s wrong?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Nothing. I got a job today. Or an interview, not a job, really.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh? What is it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“An accountant gig.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Copycat,” Connor whispers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin smiles softly, “It’s just at a family-owned place in the city. They’re digitizing records for people. I won’t really be trusted with a lot of math.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Probably for the best.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah,” he says quietly. “But I’m a good typist, so I thought…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes, you were always good with your hands,” Connor smiles, shakes his head as his face falls back neutrally. “Is that all?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No. I have the papers,” he says, reaching into the bag on his shoulder.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh,” Connor says quietly. “You can set them on the counter. I’ll mail them in tomorrow.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Is that what you want, Con?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You already know what I want, Gavin.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Right.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What do </span>
  <em>
    <span>you </span>
  </em>
  <span>want?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“A shredder.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“W-What?” Connor says. “A shredder?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah, you have one in your office, don’t you?” he says.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Does that mean—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin nods.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Can you say it?” Connor asks quietly. “I need to hear you say it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I want to come home, Connor,” he whispers. “Will you let me come home?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Of course.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor won’t let Gavin kiss him. Not until the papers are destroyed. He sits on the desk beside the machine as Gavin sends each page through one at a time, terrified of jamming it up.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Did you sign them?” Connor asks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“When?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“After I took them,” Gavin says. “That night I got drunk and I signed them and then I didn’t want to go through with it so I kept pretending that I hadn’t.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So we’ve been divorced, technically, for a few weeks now?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin nods, “Not legally, though. Government never knew.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor smiles softly, weak and pained, “Lucky for us. We don’t have to pay for a second wedding.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Guess not.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What made you change your mind?” he asks. “Why’d you come back?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I really didn’t want to live the rest of my life never seeing you again,” Gavin replies. “And my therapist—”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re in therapy?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah,” he nods, smiles even. “I’m sorry it took me so long to go.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“At least you’re going now.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Right,” he replies. “She said that I self-sabotage. Actually, a lot of people said that. That I can’t let myself be happy. She asked me what I wanted and all I could think of was you and Ellie. I mean, I love my brother but he gets on my nerves quite a bit, so I thought I could probably do without him.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor lets out a small laugh, “So what happened between us? Why did you disappear?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know. It was like things were going too good. And I know I’m not right, like, in the head? You and Ellie make me so happy but sometimes it’s…. Not enough. I really hate myself, Connor. And I thought it would go away if somebody loved me but it didn’t. And I thought maybe I would feel like my life mattered if I had a kid, but it still means nothing to me. My life, not the kid. I got really scared. And I kept thinking that I shouldn’t feel so hateful and disgusted with myself when I have the two most incredible people in the world with me. And if I hated myself so much, why would I do that to you and her? Why would I make her grow up with a dad that can’t keep it together and why would I put you through all this pain? And then I kept… staying late because I thought it was helping or something. I don’t know. I just… felt like I wanted to die all the time but never had the guts to actually do it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I didn’t know,” Connor whispers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know. I wouldn’t tell you. I thought telling you would just make it worse.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me, Gavin.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know. I don’t know why it takes losing you every single time for me to try and get my shit together,” he says, looking up to him. “I just wanted to be better, you know? Without ever really doing anything. I just wish I could’ve woken up and been okay.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It doesn’t work like that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know. It’d be nice, though, wouldn’t it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Very,” Connor whispers. “But is the therapy helping?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think so. I wouldn’t have asked to come back if I didn’t think I could be…” he trails off. “Good enough for you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You were always good enough for me, Gavin. You just suffer constantly and you do it so quietly.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s hard to talk about these things.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s how you know you have to.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He smiles softly, “Right. That’s the last page, by the way. So can I kiss you now?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Please.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin steps over to him, moving forward to kiss Connor, his hands on his knees, pushing his legs apart to get closer. Connor wraps his legs around him, pulling him further in, his hands threaded in Gavin’s hair. Like a first kiss, he thinks. Like their first real kiss that left him breathless and anxious and knowing that all he wanted was to kiss Gavin for the rest of his life. That if he was sentenced to just that, he thinks he would be okay.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But a bit like a promise, too.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A promise that this is the last time Gavin breaks his heart.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Except, maybe, for the day he dies, but Connor won’t hold that against him. Or, at least, probably not for long.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They shed their clothes one by one, Gavin’s hand on Connor’s waist, steadying him against the edge of the desk. It’s different this time than it was last time. This time he knows he isn’t using Connor. He’s just with him, and the kisses pressed against his face and the hands ghosting over his skin feel right and perfect and he thinks, maybe, he can do this. He’ll keep going to therapy. He’ll have Connor come with him. They’ll work on each other. They won’t be perfect just because they’ve decided to get back together. They still need to put work into it. But Gavin can do it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And if he gets that shitty job he’ll keep it until he can find something better, but he’ll be </span>
  <em>
    <span>here</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he’ll be home for Ellie’s birthdays and the holidays and he’ll try his hardest to let himself believe Connor when he says he loves him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s not going to hurt him again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He freezes at the same moment Connor does, the sound of the doorbell ringing out throughout the house.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Who is that?” Gavin whispers. “If it’s Hank I’m going to kill him.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s Elijah. I asked him to help with the house. I didn’t think you’d come over.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, tell him to fuck off.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Connor smiles and he laughs and Gavin leans up and catches his lips with his own because he hasn’t heard that laugh in too long and he doesn’t know if the pain it causes him is good or bad, just that he needs it a dozen more times.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m not going to be rude to him,” Connor whispers. “He’s my brother-in-law still.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, and if I hadn’t shredded the papers?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then I could’ve told him to fuck off.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So it’s all my fault, huh? Me and my shitty DNA?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes,” Connor says quietly, pressing a kiss against the bridge of Gavin’s nose before pushing him back and reaching for his clothes on the ground. “You should go.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Kicking me out?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Go to Warner’s,” he replies, pulling his shirt on. “Get your stuff. Come back tonight. In the morning I’ll make pancakes.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Strawberry?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Unfortunately, Elijah already had me promise him chocolate chip.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What a piece of shit,” Gavin says, stepping forward, stealing another kiss. “But you’re serious about this? I can come back?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Stop asking and just go,” Connor says, pushing him away to the door.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Gavin picks up his jeans, hopping on one foot as he pulls them on, “I love you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I love you, too,” he says. “Don’t forget it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I won’t.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He won’t.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’ll listen this time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’ll believe.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not just that Connor loves him, but that they’ll be okay.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>[slaps 42 pages of divorce angst into ao3] that's the end of that</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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